Guns

America’s problem isn’t guns – it’s gangs

/ hsoi / 2 Comments

Chicago’s murder numbers have hit that magic 500. Baltimore’s murder toll has passed 200. In Philly, it’s up to 324, the highest since 2007. In Detroit, it’s approaching 400, another record. In New Orleans, it’s almost at 200. New York City is down to 414 from 508. In Los Angeles, it’s over 500. In St. Louis it’s 113 and 130 in Oakland. It’s 121 in Memphis and 76 in Birmingham.

Washington, D.C., home of the boys and girls who can solve it all, is nearing its own big 100.

Those 12 cities alone account for nearly 3,200 dead and nearly a quarter of all murders in the United States. And we haven’t even visited sunny Atlanta or chilly Cleveland.

Read the full story here. (h/t Tom Givens)

Really, go read the story. While the Obama-bashing and editorializing detract some from the article, the facts and data presented in the article are undeniable, as is the conclusion.

Furthermore, it demonstrates that any sort of “gun control” legislation will be ineffective because most of the people perpetuating gun violence are criminals to begin with and won’t obey your laws.

So again, mind your data. Think about these deeper root causes of violence (like in Austin). Work to address those deeper issues, those actual root causes.

 

Mind your data

/ hsoi / 1 Comment

This video has been floating around for a little while, and I finally got to watch it:

So if want to go back to the City of Austin wanting to ban gun shows thinking it will reduce violent crime, well, like I said, you have to look deeper.

I’ve looked at crime data before, like the City of Austin’s crime data.

A look at the 2009 FBI crime data and how it’s going down, but 6% of the murders used no weapon at all.

In a backlog clearing, I pointed to the 2011 semi-annual FBI crime stats, showing violent crime in the US is way down. What’s interesting about this is the speculation as to why crime is down. It shows it’s a VERY complex issue, and why it’s difficult to compare countries when talking “gun policy” because the social structure, cultural norms, and so many other things are different from country to country. With so many factors in the equation, comparing countries is like comparing apples to horses.

Folks, take a cue from the maker of the above video. Stop getting your information from obviously biased sources. Yes, that even means from the NRA, because they too have a strong agenda. Look at the raw data itself. Or do like Howard Nemerov did and take your data “from the other side” to show how their own data doesn’t even hold up and in fact supports their opponent.

Alas, what makes this a difficult discussion to have is one side is based upon emotions and irrational thinking. It’s hard to have a discussion in such a context. Policy based upon emotion only leads to greater problems. We need to think clearly, understand facts and data, and make future plans and policies based upon rational thought, not emotional agenda.

Smart guns? Dumb idea.

/ hsoi / 1 Comment

So, Jeremy Shane thinks the solution to the problem is to “make guns smart”: (h/t Shawn)

While the debate rages on, it’s worth thinking out of the box for a moment. What if we could design guns to be smarter and safer — with hardware and software? The right technology could neutralize the killing capability of an assault weapon, even in a madman’s hands.

After reading Mr. Shane’s article, I’m not sure how much he knows about guns or software, but it comes off like he doesn’t know much. I’m a firearms instructor and have been a software developer for over 20 years, so I know a few things about both realms. Given that, while I applaud Mr. Shane’s imagination, I can say his ideas are best left to the imagination, as realization of them will not lead to the end goals he desires.

The root of the problem is that guns are “dumb.” Pull the trigger and they discharge bullets mindlessly, regardless of who is doing the aiming or where they are aimed. Guns should “know” not to fire in schools, churches, hospitals or malls. They should sense when they are being aimed at a child, or at a person when no other guns are nearby.

Most useful tools are dumb. We don’t have “smart” hammers, smart screwdrivers, smart knives, smart binoculars, smart blenders, smart cars… well, granted some things are starting to try to move that way, but most things understand that those “smart” devices can really only operate in dumb environments. No computer can process information as fast and as well as the human brain, can make the “instant” decisions that sometimes are necessary. The “touchier” the environment, the more humans are still needed. Even with all the safety technology being brought into cars, we still haven’t eliminated the driver because there are just some things the car cannot do and only a human can.

Should guns “know” not to fire into schools or churches or hospitals or malls? I don’t know… what if there’s an active shooter in a school or church or mall (since that’s where most such events have happened)? Wouldn’t you want the good guys to have guns that can work in those environments?

They should sense being aimed at a child. How would that work? Define “child”, as some sort of optical device would perceive them? I mean, I know some young teenagers that are larger than adults, some adults that cast child-like silhouettes. Mr. Shane also says “Sensory data can be used by built-in software to disable firing if the gun is pointed at a child or someone holding a child.”. Or someone holding a child… So a gun shouldn’t be functional if pointed at the person kidnapping your child?

You see, these are subjective decisions. How exactly can software make the sort of decision necessary? And even if it can, it takes time, time that may not be present as a horrible event is unfolding.

If you wish to have software attempt to make these subjective decisions, we have to remember that software is imperfect. It’s written by humans — who are imperfect — and software has bugs. It may not be robust enough. It may not be sound enough. It may hold bias of the programmer. I mean, for all my care and concern at writing bug-free code in my decades of programming, it’s impossible to write bug-free code. Do you want YOUR bug to be responsible for someone’s death? That it might not fire when you need it to fire, or that it fires when you don’t want it to fire? And then, who bears the responsibility for such a mistake?

Couldn’t gun software be hacked? Perhaps, but the risk can be reduced by open-sourcing code, requiring software patch downloads, and notifying gun makers or law enforcement if software is disabled. Open-sourcing code is not foolproof, but it will build a community of lawful gun owners and code writers who value safety and Second Amendment rights. Enabling two-way communication between guns and their original makers will help guns to be tracked beyond the initial sale, putting greater long-term responsibility on gun makers.

Nice thought, but open source code is still not bug-free and still can have horrible things happen. And there’s nothing here to address “software hacks”, but boy… what about viruses? what about social engineering? hardware hacks (I mean, why not just disassemble the gun and disable or replace the mechanism)? It’s not like DRM has really stopped piracy. It’s not like iPhone’s don’t keep getting jailbroken. There’s so many other things that can happen and be made to go wrong, to bypass, or to even force malfunctions. Wouldn’t it just be dandy if some virus was let loose that caused all these guns to rapidly empty their magazines at some coordinated time of day… all around the world… *shudder*.

There have been groups that have attempted such “smart guns”, and all have failed. Not only because the system itself doesn’t really work out, but because no one is willing to buy said “smart” systems. There’s no police nor military group that would want to buy such a thing, because they operate in environments where you may need to shoot multiple rounds in a school at a person holding a child. They understand these “smart” systems are anything but, and are too risky and prone to failure, and not worth risking their lives over. So you may say, only sell “dumb guns” to police and military. Realize then that still means such guns would be in circulation, and thus bad people will still get a hold of them. Of course, if you know anything about weapons fashioned and found in prisons, bad people will get weapons without your “smart restrictions” if they really want them. Even if somehow that’s all there is, there are going to be other “dumb” ways to cause mass destruction; look at Timothy McVeigh. So all these “smart” weapons would do is abridge and hamper law-abiding good citizens. Why do you want to do that?

You see, a well-made gun is actually a very simple mechanical system; it’s a simple machine. Once you start to add all of these things on it, start trying to add GPS, sensory data, target discernment, you start making for a massively complex system. And with any complex system, it starts to become… well… complex. Difficult. And prone to mistakes.

If truly you value life, should it be held to a system that can be massively complex and prone to mistakes? For all your attribution to car technology, Mr. Shane, consider how many recalls happen every year. A car is a massively complex system, and while it may work most of the time, you know all too well that cars break down and fail us. Thankfully most of the time car breakdowns don’t have life hanging in the balance. But when good guys need their guns, for certain lives are hanging in the balance — do we really want the risk of breakdown when preserving life is most critical?

It’s a nice thought, but technology cannot save us. Fixing our cultural and social norms and behaviors is at the root of solving this problem.

And the shoe drops

/ hsoi / 2 Comments

Yeah… kinda expected Our Benevolent Overlords in Washington would entertain this route:

Vice President Joe Biden revealed that President Barack Obama might use an executive order to deal with guns.

“The president is going to act,” said Biden, giving some comments to the press before a meeting with victims of gun violence. “There are executives orders, there’s executive action that can be taken. We haven’t decided what that is yet. But we’re compiling it all with the help of the attorney general and the rest of the cabinet members as well as legislative action that we believe is required.”

Yup. Screw checks and balances. Screw the will of the people. They know what’s best for us. Of course, the reason for taking this route is there would be less opposition, because they know what they want to do is unpopular and will receive one hell of a fight.

And no, I don’t like Executive Orders no matter who is doing them for whatever “good” reason they do them.

Of course, the “if it saves just 1 life” line was trotted out:

Biden talked also about taking responsible action. “As the president said, if you’re actions result in only saving one life, they’re worth taking. But I’m convinced we can affect the well-being of millions of Americans and take thousands of people out of harm’s way if we act responsibly.”

Well Vice-President Biden, I present you with this:

The 15-year-old boy and his 12-year-old sister had been home alone in the Mount Royal Village subdivision when around 2:30 p.m. a pair of burglars tried the front and back doors, then broke a back window.

The teenager grabbed his father’s assault rifle and knew what to do with it.

Looks like that teenager’s use of an AR-15 saved two lives… and not just any two lives, but 2 children. So by your line of reasoning, Mr. President and Mr. Vice-President, since it saved two lives, then keeping our AR’s must be doubly worth it.

Austin gun show ban – update

/ hsoi / 1 Comment

Looks like some movement is happening on Austin’s “feels-good-to-do-something-that-accomplishes-nothing” desire to ban gun shows.

First, Don Dahl, Director of Range Safety at the Austin Rifle Club, writes that “I put some chinks in the armor” and the Travis County Commissioners want a session with their attorneys. Apparently Nordyke v. King, 681 F. 3d 1041 – Court of Appeals, 9th Circuit 2012  is playing a part.

TSRA sent out a mailer:

Background and History on Gun Shows

Texans love their gun shows. Until the mid-80’s gun shows were a venue soley for private seller and the collector’s clubs across the country. Anyone holding a federal firearm license was limited to doing business at the address on their license. Congress was successfully lobbied by licensees wanting to “even the playing field” and today’s gun shows developed.

In 1999 Todd Beiter was the only promoter who answered the call to come to Austin during the legislative session to work with TSRA and fight down Rep. Debra Danburg’s attempt at a statewide Gun-Show-Loophole bill. The legislature was out to level the playing field some more and this time the private seller would be out the door.

Beiter testified in House Public Safety Committee and explained the laws covering private sales and those covering the sale of a firearm by an FFL. He also explained the safety precautions taken at the door of his gun show, including the number of off-duty police officers who check and cable firearms brought in for sale by both the vendors and the general public.

At the end of the day, the House committee voted and the Democratic majority defeated Rep. Danburg’s bill. This was a giant win for Texas gun owners and the outcome could have been different if Todd Beiter had not come to Austin.

That’s an interesting and significant bit of history.

The TSRA mailer continues:

The Contract:

Todd Beiter has a contract with Travis County for the use of the facility until January 2014. He pays a great deal of money to Travis County. The county does not want to lose a good tenant. Remember it’s pressure from the City of Austin.

Pressure from the city? or from a select few council members?

More from the TSRA mailer:

The Federal Court Ruling:

In 2000, Todd Bean, owner of High Caliber Gun and Knife Show was handed a list of requirements by the City of Houston. High Caliber contracted to use Houston-owned property. The list included, among other things, a requirement to register attendees and another to remove the firing pins from firearms.

There was a legal challenge and the case went to federal court. NRA’s general counsel, Bob Dowlut, wrote an amicus brief in support of High Caliber. Bean prevailed against Houston. The language of the ruling was unusually broad and likely applies to Saxet.

Todd Beiter runs a safe, legal business, takes care of the public, the facility, his vendors, and Todd is a good tenant. The attempt to break his contract comes from the City of Austin and “feel-good” city politics.

So the legal pressure builds.

But if you REALLY want to see what legal pressure is, just look at the response Lawrence Person received from Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott:

If Austin or Travis Co. try to ban gun shows they better be ready for a double-barreled lawsuit.

Granted, it was over Twitter and isn’t anything official, but I think it speaks volumes for itself.

So like I said, Austin City Council, is this really the wisest way to proceed? To try to ban gun shows is not going to make one bit of difference in terms of reducing violent crime. But for certain if you proceed, you are going to lose revenue from the lost contracts and sales tax, and then spend too much money out of the city’s coffers to fight the inevitable lawsuits. This is not a wise move for a city struggling with finances. If you really want to spend that money, there are tangible issues in our city that you can address that would make an actual reduction in violent crime. Why not start there.

Addressing violent crime in Austin

/ hsoi / 3 Comments

So the Austin City Council thinks that banning law-abiding citizens from engaging in lawful commerce will lower violent crime rates.

Of course, there’s no data nor facts to back up such approaches, but why let facts, data, and reason get in the way of a good knee-jerk “do something” emotional reaction.

Now, I’m all for doing things to reduce violent crime, and if those that claim to want to reduce violent crime really want to do such a thing, they should look at real root causes and work to address those things. That Guy points out an interesting find about Austin’s violent crime rates. From KLBJ 590AM:

Austin police say downtown crime involving the homeless or transients is becoming a big problem. Assistant Chief Raul Mungia with the Austin Police tells the Public Safety Commission, “From January 2011 to November 6th 2012, 35 percent of the violent crime down there involved transients.”

Mungia says 254 violent crimes were reported with 29 of those incidents involved transients as a suspect and 13 as a victim.

So Councilman Martinez, if you want to “do something” about reducing violent crime, looks like you’ve got a good place to start. That’s real crime, real violence, real problem, really happening. Instead of “feeling good” and accomplishing nothing, here you could feel good about accomplishing something tangible.

I’m sure Leslie Cochran would appreciate it.

Austin restricting gun shows?

/ hsoi / 7 Comments

When you can’t do anything useful, that’s when you “do something”.

And so it goes, with the City of Austin and Travis County considering bans on gun shows.

City of Austin and Travis County officials plan to take steps to ban gun shows on city- and county-owned property — and potentially even curtail them on private property within the city limits, the American-Statesman has learned.

Why would they do such a thing? There’s hundreds of thousands of dollars of revenue at stake from just the use of the facilities, then all the sales tax revenue for the city. “In these tough economic times”, why would the city throw away hundreds of thousands of dollars of revenue?

“This isn’t a silver bullet that is going to solve all of our problems, but this is our way of saying, ‘What we do have control over in terms of the Austin City Council, we should take a proactive stance to not further enable the distribution and sales of guns through public property or through public facilities,’” [City Council member Mike] Martinez said.

[Travis County Commissioner Sarah] Eckhardt said, “It is all that we can do. It is a drop in the bucket, but if everybody does what they can, in aggregate, I think we will have made a difference.”

Oh I see. They think doing this is somehow going to stop gun violence. That this will somehow stop media-sensationalized mass murder from happening.

I see.

And their data that action A causes result B is where?

But you see, this has nothing to do with logic, and reason and facts.

“I would just prefer that if people want to buy firearms, they do it through a retailer and not through gun shows,” Martinez said.

I would just prefer it.

I wonder how Martinez feels about eBay and Craigslist. And how about all those local Austin farmers and flea markets? Garage sales?

So you see, no rational debate. No rational discussion. No logic. No facts. Just one Councilman’s preference because of his own ignorance and misunderstanding… and a need to “do something”, even tho that something will have no impact upon reduction of violence.

But it sure will have impact upon reduction of city revenue.

Some additional coverage at stainles’ blog and Lawrence Person’s blog.

Consider as well this could lead to breach of contract, and all manner of lawsuits for the city. More things to reduce city revenue. Can the city really afford it?

Look, if y’all think gun shows are hotbeds of criminal activity, then take steps to manage the criminal activity. But preventing law-abiding citizens from engaging in lawful commerce and depriving the city of much needed revenue strikes me as irresponsible behavior in our elected officials.

We will remember these actions on election day.

Starting IDPA

/ hsoi / 4 Comments

I made it a goal of 2012 to participate in at least one competition match.

I failed to meet that goal. Main reason? Limited time on weekends, and I chose teaching over playing games.

Plus I’ll tell you a secret. Public perception. Yes, I’m embarrassed to admit it, but people expect because you teach that you should be some awesome shooter — and that is not an unreasonable expectation. I know I don’t suck, but I am not at the level I expect of myself. I just haven’t made “becoming a Grandmaster USPSA/IPSC shooter” a top priority. And so I fear, with the “small world” that is the shooting world here in Central Texas, I’d go out to some match, stink up the joint, and how that would reflect on me as a teacher, upon KR Training, and so on. And so it’s kept me away. That’s just unhealthy and wrong, but it’s human of me. I’m getting over it.

I decided that in 2013 I need to shoot more. I need to get my skills up. And with Karl and Tim’s support, I’m backing off teaching and going to shoot local IDPA club matches in 2013. There are a lot of IDPA matches every month if I wanted to drive and be away every weekend, but I’ll start with one match and month and see how it goes. My intention is to shoot one IDPA match a month (with some minor exceptions), and dry practice the needed skills in between matches. If the only live fire I get each month is the match, then so be it — it’s better than I have been doing. I am not planning on shooting more than 1 match a month, but who knows how things might progress.

Interesting thing is the next matches? They’re all running the IDPA Classifier. Heck of a way to start, eh? But why not. In a way, it’d be cool to establish a baseline for myself. Yes, I expect to stink up the joint because I don’t know the rules, I don’t know how to play the game, and I don’t know how to “game” the game either. So I’ll just shoot, be very conservative, and suck. But at least there’s no where to go but up. 🙂

I’m also rusty as hell. *sigh*

That said, today I did go out to the A-Zone range and ran myself through some drills, one of which was the Classifier. At least I won’t be totally cold and unfamiliar with it. Alas, it’s been raining and was raining there this morning, light, but enough that it was muddy and slippery. Still, it doesn’t matter. Shoot, it’s no excuse for performance. The only thing it really prevented me from doing was kneeling — I got “almost down”.

How did I do? I’m solidly a Sharpshooter. That kinda depresses me because it’s not the level of performance I expect from myself — if I had shot Expert, I would have been happier. I had too many points down (especially on stage 3), including some misses that should not have happened. I mean, I expected I might stink up stage 3, but I should have been able to shoot stage 1 clean and I didn’t. *sigh*  I can say this was the first thing I shot, cold from the car, and the last time I did any live fire was a couple of months ago (yes, horrible). In fact, I haven’t done much dry fire either. I am not being a good role model. So really, when I look at it all, my performance is in line with everything. And I’m not happy about that.

I can’t fix it all overnight. Here’s a few things I can do now to start making tangible improvements:

  1. Get the first shot off faster. My time to first shot was in the 1.7 to 1.8 range. I was being slow today, intentionally so, but I can certainly work to improve this down to at least 1.5. A lot of this is just anticipating the buzzer and moving my body quickly to get the gun out of the holster a.s.a.p.. After shooting the Classifier, I spent some time doing one shot draw drills against the timer, trying to push myself. I could push and get to 1.5 without much problem but then #2 would fall apart.
  2. Work on the press-out/presentation. It’s about getting into that eye-target line, so when I do the draw, when I get things out faster. This really dovetails into #1. But while I do want to strive for the ideal sight picture and such, I have to remember the Brian Enos stuff of seeing as much sight picture as is needed, but no more. Allow myself to go faster and have the “good enough” sight picture for 7 yards (which will be different than 20 yards).
  3. Slow down more on the 15+ yard shooting.
  4. Speed up on 1H shooting.

Really, I think if I work on the draw/present, that’ll take me far with everything at this point. The goal then being to be able to shoot stage 1 clean, and I think 30 seconds is reasonable as a starting goal. I found some posts on the brianenos.com forums, for Expert breakdown and Master breakdown. Using those as a guide, I think cleaning stage 1 in 30 seconds is a good starting goal to work towards. Given how I shot today, it’s quite do-able with the above focus of faster draw and speeding up the 1H shooting.

Once I tackle that, I’ll reassess and tackle the next weak point. The larger goal is to classify as Expert (or better). In terms of time frame, I reckon that means “by the next Classifier”, which is probably January 2014. I’ve got a long road ahead of me.

Wish me luck on this new journey.

Fun Family Day

/ hsoi / 1 Comment

If you look down on “rednecks”, both the people and the things they do, then you should stop reading now because this post will probably offend you. 🙂

Had a wonderful day with the family today. Originally we were to do this during my Christmas vacation, but since I was down with the flu it didn’t happen. Fortunately the heavens saw fit to give us today, so the opportunity was taken.

The main thing? Going to the gun range and shooting. Some work, some recreation. Thank you, Karl, for letting us use the range.

It started off with me doing some live fire pistol skills work, because of my desire to start shooting IDPA. Details on this elsewhere. Meanwhile, Wife and Kiddos were inside the range house doing schoolwork (the joys of homeschooling).

When I finished my work, I took Wife out for a little work with the shotgun. She wants to improve her proficiency with the shotgun, so we did some work there. Alas, a 12 gauge, even with low-recoil rounds, just isn’t in the cards for her (Karl, if you find her shoulder, please let me know). She’s just fine with the 20 gauge. I just wish … oh wait! It looks like Federal now has a 20 gauge buckshot with FLITECONTROL wad (PD256). Holy crap! This is awesome. Of course, as I look around right now, everyone’s out of stock. But wow, this is great. I’m there and it’s pretty much removed my reserves about the 20 gauge. Sure it’d be nice to standardize on 12 gauge, but oh well. At least now I don’t have to put up with sub-optimal 20 gauge buckshot.

After that, Wife was done for the day. With the wet weather and the temps in the 40’s, it was just too cold for her to keep going. But the Kiddos were ready.

I recently purchased a new shotgun and needed to break it in and ensure function. I ran a bunch of 12 gauge target loads through it, then some full-power buckshot (of course, the Federal FLITECONTROL), and some slugs (Brenneke low-recoil slugs). The slugs didn’t want to go into the mag tube easily for some reason, looks like the brass was hanging up on the retainer clips, but no big deal really. Everything functioned great. I did put a 12″ Hogue Short Shot stock on it (shorter LOP makes for easier shouldering) and while 12″ LOP is a little too short for me, it worked out alright and I didn’t smack my thumb into my face as much as I expected I would. 🙂  I consider the shotgun functional and able to be pressed into service.

Oldest has never shot a 12 gauge before — he’s always been a bit recoil shy. But today he stepped right up to the plate and fired it like a champ. We’ll work on speeding up his shot recovery, but he really did a great job with it.

Youngest has never fired a “big gun” before, just .22’s. But he wanted to try the shotgun. 12 gauge was too much tho, so I pulled out the 20 gauge (a Mossberg 500 Bantam youth model) and let him try it with some light target loads (which are still kinda stout). He handled it well, tho was taken aback a bit because it was a big boom — again, it’s the most gun he’s ever fired. But he did come back for a second shot, but that was enough. 🙂

We put the shotguns away and took out an AR-15. I originally didn’t plan on bringing out an AR, but when packing up this morning, Oldest expressed interest in shooting it and I wasn’t going to say no. Again, he’s been very recoil shy in the past, only wanting to shoot .22’s. So for him to want to step up is great in my book. I mean, I know he can handle it, after having shot that 255# feral hog a couple years ago with a .308 bolt-action. Oldest got to learn what “giggle factor” is. 🙂  He was having WAY too much fun with that rifle — I should have brought more ammo. Daughter shot it for a bit, but she tweaked something in one of her arms the other day and so it was kinda painful to hold up the rifle. Youngest tried the AR as well, and was quite pleased that the recoil was far less than the shotgun — tho it was a heavier gun to hold up.

We put the long-guns away, and pulled out everyone’s favorite: the Buck Mark Camper. All 3 kiddos shot at the steel targets with this, and it’s just fun to plink with such a low-recoil gun — tho Youngest did get bit by the slide. Daughter showed some good improvement on trigger control. She asked how you get to shoot faster, so I explained a bit and I guess something clicked because she was shooting a little faster by the time we wrapped up.

While a lot of today was about having fun, it also was with purpose. I want my kids to be self-sufficient and able to take care of themselves. Yes, that means being able to shoot a gun proficiently. You may not understand why that’s the case, and if you don’t understand I’d be happy to discuss it with you; even if you don’t agree with it, I hope you are willing to have an open mind and come to listen and understand. The guns shot, the things we did, all done with purpose, even if I was the only one that knew what the purpose was.

Alas, we had to wrap it up before everyone was tired of it, but that’s ok — always leave them wanting more.

We headed to the Elm Creek Cafe for a delicious lunch (everyone loves that place), then back home.

Oh… and the Buc-ee’s in Bastrop is finally open. Yes, we stopped in. Finally my family came to understand why I adore Buc-ee’s.

We had a great day. Smiles all around. Happy family. I can’t wait to do it again.

DIY Airsoft trap

/ hsoi

Remember that Airsoft M&P I purchased a few months ago?

If I’m going to have it, I need a place to shoot it. If I’m going to shoot it, I need a way to manage all the plastic BB’s.

It’s CO2-powered, and it has some oomph. I tried shooting it at simple cardboard and that proved to be no match for it. TXGunGeek told of a great solution, getting those big wardrobe boxes, because you can stick one at the end of the hallway and it makes for a great place to catch the plastic BB’s. I think that’s a great solution – if you have the room. Alas, I do not have the room for one of those huge boxes, nor would Wife tolerate it. 🙂

When I was a teenager, I had a pellet gun and had a trap for it. The trap was made mostly out of thick plastic, except for the back and front. The front was a simple cardboard cover, so you could afix a target and of course shoot through it (and easily replace it). The back was made out of a steel plate and angled downward so any lead pellets that hit it would be deflected down. Also, hanging within the box were some curtains, I think made of Kevlar or at least very thick canvas, to help trap the pellets. It worked quite well, and served as my inspiration. (I just found it, it was a Crosman Target Trap).

The rules? To make a BB trap that minimized the bouncing BB’s and cleanup, but also that didn’t cost me a whole lot. Plus if it got all beat up and shot out, wouldn’t be a big deal to replace. So I went digging around the house to scrounge what I could, and was fortunate to find everything I needed. So in the end, this project cost me nothing but a bit of my time.

A box

What was fortunate about this project was receiving a package from UPS, and the box it came in was a nice large cube. That was the perfect way to start this effort. After some work with a knife and duct tape, I had formed the basics of the trap:

 

The basic trap.

Key factors were to put duct tape along every seam and corner, taping down whatever was needed to minimize nooks and crevices where BB’s could become trapped. I also wanted to make the opening as large as possible to accommodate whatever my target was, but still have a lip at the bottom to of course prevent rollout. After having used this trap for a little bit, I could argue having the front being replaceable to be useful. That is, the BB’s still can and do bounce, and having this big wide opening covered up of course helps retain the BB’s. I didn’t want to put a cover in place because it would get shot out and I’m lazy and didn’t want to have to always be replacing it. The paper target works fine covering most of it but well… maybe I might want to just leave a 8.5″x11″ opening, so the paper target hangs just fine, easily replaced anyways, but otherwise there’s maximum retention.

We recently retired some bedsheets from a child’s bed. I also found some carpet tack strips in a corner of the garage. A little measure, a little cut:

Start of the curtain

I cut the strip to fit the width of the box. I cut the curtain to be the width of the box and twice the height. Put the tack strip in the middle, just poking the tacks through the cloth to hold it. Note this cloth is not very thick nor heavy. I actually shot a few things and found that the weight mattered. If it was too heavy, it didn’t absorb the energy of the BB as much as deflect it — the point is to stop ricochet. So this light bed sheet worked fine to catch and cradle the BB as it hit, stopping it.

I applied the tack strip to the inside of the roof:

Hanging the curtain.

Here was a time for experimentation. Where to put it? Should I put the curtain close to the front? closer to the back? I even tried two sets of curtains to see what effect that would have. In the end, I settled on one curtain placed about 3/4 of the way back. First, two curtains ended up acting like a heavier curtain, too much material, too much resistance, and BB’s bounced instead of being absorbed. But also, too close to the front could allow the BB to “shoot through” the curtain and just strike the back and bounce. Positioning the curtain close to the back but with some room ended up working out the best because the cloth would absorb the BB but then all strike the back wall and be enough to make everything stop. It’s just what worked best.

I did play around with a cardboard insert at the back wall, at an angle to angle the BB’s down. That didn’t work out, but I also didn’t experiment with this angle (pun intended) all that much.

Despite all of this, I still had two problems: 1. the tack strip fell down, 2. BB’s could still bounce.

Finished trap

I had used glue and the strip’s tacks to attach it to the roof of the trap — it’s just cardboard. And while that was OK, it wasn’t ideal. So I just cut another section of tack strip, put it on the outside of the box opposite the inner strip, and used the nails within the strip to nail the two strips together. Works like a charm.

I also took the cut cloth from my second curtain experiment and just laid it loose and bunched on the floor. That worked well to provide an absorbing and uneven surface for trapping the BB’s that fell down, and it doesn’t get in the way when you want to empty the trap.

To use the trap? I just print out targets on paper and attach them with a tack from the top of the box. Simple enough.

It works pretty well. A BB here and there still flies out, but overall it works well enough and I’m quite pleased. Didn’t cost me any money, just a bit of my time, and was fun to devise and assemble.