Amy Davidson, in the New Yorker, quarrels with the characterization by the local sheriff of the accidental shooting death of instructor Charles Vacca by a 9-year-old girl firing an Uzi as “an industrial accident.”

The Arizona Last Stop, where a nine-year-old girl accidentally shot her instructor with an Uzi last Monday, has already reopened. It was “booked pretty solid” for the Labor Day weekend, Sam Scarmardo, the owner, told Reuters. The sheriff of Mohave County described a video of the shooting—recorded by the girl’s parents, who were tourists from New Jersey—as “grisly,” and has filed his report. He found that there is no cause for any criminal charges, not against whoever put together the range’s Bullets and Burgers Adventure, designed to put automatic military weapons in the hands of children as young as eight, or against anyone else. Instead, the sheriff referred the case to the Arizona Department of Occupational Safety and Health, because, he said, it was “being viewed as an industrial accident.”

“An industrial accident”: that phrase raises the question of what industry we are talking about. …

There are many businesses that make up the gun industry, including the buying and selling of political influence. In Arizona and many other states, the realm of firearms is poorly regulated, from gun stores and fairs to tourist traps like Last Stop. As the Arizona Republic wrote, “Arizona statutes do address firing ranges, but the laws primarily deal with noise levels. No laws govern any training protocols for firearms instructors, safety guidelines or age restrictions. But even if there were, there is no regulatory authority to enforce them.” A former Last Stop employee described the range, to the Republic, as a “shake and bake” operation, but, for what it’s worth, its enforcement record was clean. Setting a minimum age of eight to use a gun on a range has been described, since Vacca’s death, as something of an industry standard in many states. There is still an overhanging injunction that workplaces be generally safe, and maybe the Arizona authorities can do something with that, but there is not much cause for optimism.

This shouldn’t be surprising; it is not accidental. The same political forces that gather around gun rights are those railing against government in any form, even the kind that involves keeping children and their gun instructors, or other teachers, safe. We are left not only with lax gun laws but shake-and-bake shooting ranges. This is part of the explanation for why talking to the gun lobby about “common-sense regulations” never seems to go well. They are drawing on, and stoking, a view that presumes the foolishness of regulations. It is sad and telling that the only department left to look into Vacca’s death is the state equivalent of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration—regularly derided by Republicans—and that it’s unlikely to be able to do much at all.

A possible question for a 2016 Republican Party debate is whether the candidates think that nine-year-olds should ever be permitted to fire automatic weapons.

But an industrial accident, i.e. an accident which occurred as the result of improper handling of a tool, was precisely what happened.

The 9-year-old girl was clearly too small, too weak and uncoordinated, and insufficiently instructed in the safe handling and management of that weapon in full-automatic fire. She fired too long a burst and lost control of the weapon, which climbed as the result of recoil as it proceeded to continue to fire causing the muzzle to move beyond her intended target, and finally move upward to the left, winding up pointed at one moment as it continued to discharge at the unfortunate instructor’s head.

Was it unwise to put that Uzi into the hands of this 9-year-old girl? Clearly, it was. Yet, I feel perfectly sure that Mr. Vacca could have put that Uzi into the hands of entire school classes full of 9-year-olds without any such accident occurring. Most children would have kept their heads and never lost control of the Uzi. If warned in advance of the hazards of firing too long a burst, if given a magazine for full-auto fire with a more limited number of rounds, if the child were taller or if the instructor stayed lower or stood further behind the child, if the instructor were more alert, Mr. Vacca’s tragic death could easily have been averted.

All over America and the world, adults, from time to time, in the natural course of life, expose children to the excitement and interest of using dangerous tools, machinery (and sometimes weapons) all of which are potentially lethal. Parents teach children how to drive a car, a tractor, a lawn mower, or an ATV. Adults show children how to use a power saw, a lathe, or other machine tools. Parents take children to the shooting range and allow them to handle and fire guns. That is precisely the way that children grow up acquainted with tools, weapons, and machinery and learn to use them safely.

Amy Davidson’s philosophic approach to a tragic accident of this kind is to demand new federal laws and regulations based on the prejudices and emotional responses of people like herself, bien pensants socially and geographically remote from the kind of people who like to play with guns, and who actually in reality possess no expertise concerning guns or firearm safety themselves whatsoever.

From the liberal point of view, the combination of the administrative state and the pure intrinsic wisdom of the well-educated elite is effectively omnipotent. Just surrender more liberty and money to them, let them pass some more laws and create another federal agency, and they can successfully regulate happenstance, misfortune, and human incompetence and stupidity out of existence.

Obviously, there are a lot of us who disagree.

Instructor Vacca’s death was a tragic accident, but Mr. Vacca himself had as good a chance as anyone could possibly have had of preventing it. He simply failed to foresee one extreme possibility. I expect that shooting instructors nationally are going to be a lot more careful about placing full-auto weapons in the hands of children, and are going to take extra precautions and be more alert when they do.

Davidson obviously falsely depicts shooting ranges as part of an imaginarily lucrative and conspiratorial firearms industry so rich that it can buy political immunity from regulation. Gun control has actually been successfully resisted almost entirely by the purely grass-roots efforts of individual sportsmen, hobbyists, and collectors. The firearms “industry” contributes modestly to the NRA and many of its member corporations sell out to government quite readily.

Shooting ranges are all well aware that they live in a litigious country with a predatory trial bar eager to go after them. They do not need political prodding to implement safety rules and protocols. Every shooting range has already adopted all of them that they could think of as necessary.

The accidental death of Mr. Vacca merely proves that human foresight is limited and that even experts –Mr. Vacca was undoubtedly an expert– make mistakes.

The decision about when a particular child should be permitted to shoot a gun, or drive a tractor, or even I would say, when a child should be permitted to take a drink, ought really to be left up to the child’s parents. We do not need state or national policies and the last people who should be permitted to regulate access to, and usage and possession of guns or other machinery or tools should be the kind of people who write in the New Yorker and who are completely innocent of personal acquaintance and familiarity with the things they wish to regulate.

Quote: “Pistols

One of the most popular pistols is the Glock, a short-recoil operated, semi-automatic pistol produced by Glock Ges.m.b.H. in Deutsch-Wagram, Austria. Glocks comprise 65 percent of the market share of handguns for United States law enforcement agencies and are also frequently used by international law-enforcement.”

Rolling Stones’ The 5 Most Dangerous Guns in America photoessay lists “Pistols, Revolvers, Rifles, Shotguns, and Derringers” as the five firearms “causing the most harm.” Rolling Stone journalists don’t seem to understand that Derringers and Revolvers are pistols, and they provoked a sardonic smile on my part by using a photo (above) of a Phoenix HP-22 to illustrate the pistol tirade which talks all about Glocks. I guess they don’t actually know what a Glock is either.

Good thing inanimate objects do not sue, or all those guns would be in a position to win a libel case based on being blamed for causing harm. I feel perfectly sure that not a single gun ever caused any harm absent human intervention.

Rolling Stone set a kind of new record for ignorant vapidity, and that accomplishment did not go unnoticed and unmocked. There was by last night already a Twitchy page featuring parodies.

The Colt M1892 Revolver chambered in .38 Long Colt was found inadequate to stop a hopped-up, charging Muslim terrorist during the Phillipine Insurrection.

Russ Chastain observes that we seem to have a US Army that can’t learn from history, and is therefore obliged to repeat it.

Dear U.S. Army: We told you so.

When 38 bullets (actually .357 caliber, which is pretty much 9mm) failed to stop its enemies, the U.S. Army went in search of a bigger, better cartridge. The result was John Browning’s M1911 semi-automatic pistol and the 45 ACP (Automatic Colt Pistol) cartridge for which it was designed.

As you can guess from the M1911 designation, the 45 ACP was adopted into military service 103 years ago.

In 1985, the U.S. Army took a huge step backwards when it summarily dumped the 45 ACP in favor of the underpowered 9mm Luger cartridge (a.k.a. 9mm Parabellum). Irony: The 9mm is not quite as powerful as the cartridge which the 45 ACP replaced about 75 years earlier.

Now, things have apparently come full circle. Citing combat experience in Iraq and Afghanistan, authorities are once again recognizing the advantage of using a more powerful cartridge.

True to form, the government won’t look back at what once worked well and embrace it. Instead they plan to spend billions of our dollars creating and adopting something they’re calling a Modular Handgun System (MHS). And they’re not just tossing out the 9mm ammo and firearms. They’re ditching whole heaps of gear, holsters included, and starting over.

They haven’t yet settled on a caliber, and are looking just about anything better than a nine. This would include a faster same-caliber round (357 Sig) as well as larger-caliber cartridges like the 40 S&W, 10mm Auto, and 45 ACP.

Devotees of the diminutive 9mm Luger cartridge are going to have a hard time swallowing the fact that their Precious has been found to be a bit, er, weak. …

Anybody think they’ll end up with some jazzed-up version of a 1911? Hmmmm…

Read the whole thing.

John Browning’s Model 1911 design, chambered in .45 ACP, was consequently adopted to replace the too anemic .38 revolver.

The sidearm they need has already been invented.

Military Times:

The U.S. Army is moving forward to replace the Cold War-era M9 9mm pistol with a more powerful handgun that also meets the needs of the other services.

As the lead agent for small arms, the Army will hold an industry day July 29 to talk to gun makers about the joint, Modular Handgun System or MHS.

The MHS would replace the Army’s inventory of more than 200,000 outdated M9 pistols and several thousand M11 9mm pistols with one that has greater accuracy, lethality, reliability and durability, according to Daryl Easlick, a project officer with the Army’s Maneuver Center of Excellence at Fort Benning, Ga.

“It’s a total system replacement — new gun, new ammo, new holster, everything,” Easlick said.

The Army began working with the small arms industry on MHS in early 2013, but the effort has been in the works for more than five years. If successful, it would result in the Defense Department buying more than 400,000 new pistols during a period of significant defense-spending reductions. …

One of the major goals of the MHS effort is to adopt a pistol chambered for a more potent round than the current 9mm, weapons officials said. The U.S. military replaced the .45 caliber 1911 pistol with the M9 in 1985 and began using the 9mm NATO round at that time.

Soldiers who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan have complained that the 9mm round is not powerful enough to be effective in combat.

“The 9mm doesn’t score high with soldier feedback,” said Easlick, explaining that the Army, and the other services, want a round that will have better terminal effects — or cause more damage — when it hits enemy combatants. “We have to do better than our current 9mm.”

It shouldn’t take a long time to figure out that pretty much the ideal design already exists and dates back 103 years.

And liberals want to ban these things!

Via Vanderleun.

These three waggish hunters are posing with three enormous punt guns, the sort of arm that was used to hunt waterfowl en masse during the reign of Queen Victoria, in front of a duck-billed dinosaur.

From Steve Bodio via Karen L. Myers.

Just purchased: British Martini-Henry Interchangeable Carbine Mark I, manufactured in Enfield in 1887, and later rebarreled in .303 British. Shipped home from Bagram, Afghanistan by an American in January, 2013.

Wikipedia reports that a small number of Martinis have been captured from the Taliban:

Early in 2010 and 2011, United States Marines recovered at least three from various Taliban weapons caches in Marjah. In April 2011, another Martini-Henry rifle was found near Orgun in Paktika Province by United States Army’s 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault).

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Martini history:

The Martini-Henry was the result of trials held in the late 1860’s looking for a permanent solution to arming the British Army with a metallic cartridge breech-loading rifle. In 1866, the War Department adopted the Snider patent modification of the Pattern 1853 rifle musket, but it was always considered a stop-gap measure. The Martini Henry was officially adopted in 1871.

Work began on a carbine version of the Martini-Henry in 1871 as soon as the M-H was adopted, but initial experiments used the full power rifle cartridge and those involved in the trial found the recoil excessive, preferring to stick with the Snider. Little work happened on the Carbine until 1876, when trials with a carbine specific cartridge occurred, and finally, in 1877, a carbine pattern was approved. This was intended as carbine for use by both the cavalry and the artillery, and it was designated the Interchangeable Carbine Mk I (IC1) and first issues began in late 1878. In any event, the Artillery found the weapon not suitable since it did not have provisions for a sling, or the use of a bayonet, and in 1879, the Artillery Carbine Mk I was approved, and this gun became exclusively a cavalry carbine, though it was still marked IC1. In 1879, if was found that the rear sight sometimes caught on the saddle bucket and two woodscrews were added to the stock on either side, just below the rear sight. These acted as studs for a leather sight cover.

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The seller was at pains to distance himself from liability by describing the carbine as a Collectors-Item Only, Not for Shooting. But whoever re-barreled it obviously re-barreled it in order to shoot it.

Martinis were re-barreled in .303 and actually issued to Native Auxiliaries and to some reserve troops long ago.

I found a discussion about shooting .303 Martini-Henrys on a Maryland Shooters Board. One obviously knowledgeable member retorted to warnings against:

The Martin Enfield is more than up to the pressures of modern ammo, which by the way is quite a bit lower in pressure than the original loading. While the actions are indeed over 100 years old, that has little bearing on their ability to withstand use. Metal stress is cumulative, making use and condition much more important than simple age. As single shots, I suspect these fired a lot less ammo than many if not most bolt action military rifles. Further, these do not suffer from the brittle nature of many of the earlier bolt action rifles well past WWI. Further, since they were never frontline rifles in their ME form, they didn’t see the abuse either. A final consideration is the inherent strength of tilting block actions that have far greater bearing area in their knuckle than any common bolt action has in its locking lugs…and of course is complete immune to boltlug shear. While failures through receiver stretch and cracked blocks do occur, I’m unaware of any catastrophic failures….unlike many more “modern” arms half their age. There are sound reasons why many fine sporters using smokeless and BP rounds continue to be built on Martini actions, often approaching 140 years in age.

As to the disparaging remarks on not worrying about the troops, the Brits have had and continue to have some of the most stringent proofing laws in the world, while the US continues to have none. Whether military or civilian, every single firearm is proofed by an independent proving house as a matter of national law when new and whenever it receives major rework, such as a new barrel or being re-chambered. Simply put, they were and continue to be subjected to significantly greater quality control and assurance throughout their life than just about any other nation’s firearms.

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If a Zulu Impi suddenly appears over the hill, I’m going to be ready.

Shipman’s web-site.

Enter the Ringo Kid.

Scott Eyman, in his new biography, John Wayne, The Life the Legend, describes the historic source of the iconic gesture in the opening scene of John Ford‘s “Stagecoach” (1939), which ignited Wayne’s career and made him a major star.

The scene had a problem, and the problem was the gun.

Dudley Nichol’s script was specific. “There is the sharp report of a rifle and Curly jerks up his gun as Buck saws wildly at the ribbons.

“The stagecoach comes to a lurching stop before a young man who stands in the road beside his unsaddled horse. He has a saddle over one arm and a rifle carelessly swung in the other hand… It is Ringo…

“RINGO? You might need me and this Winchester, I saw a couple ranches burnin’ last night.’

“CURLY? I guess you don’t understand, kid. You’re under arrest.

“RINGO?(with charm) I ain’t arguing about that, Curly. I just hate to part with a gun like this.

“Holding it by the lever, he gives it a jerk and it cocks with a click…”

John Ford loved the dialogue, which was in and of itself unusual, but the introduction of the Ringo Kid needed to be emphasized. Ford decided that the shot would begin with the actor doing something with the gun, then the camera would rapidly track in from a full-length shot to an extreme close-up — an unusually emphatic camera movement for Ford, who had grown to prefer a stable camera.

Since the actor was already coping with two large props, Ford decided to lose the horse. He told his young star what he was planning to do: “work out something with the rifle,” Ford sais. “Or maybe just a pistol.” He wasn’t sure.

And just like that the problem was dropped in the lap of his star, a young — but not all that young — actor named John Wayne., better known to Ford and everyone else as Duke.

Wayne ran through the possibilities. every actor in in westerns could twirl a pistol, so that was out. Besides, the script specified a rifle cocked quickly with one hand, but later in the scene than what Ford was planning. In addition, Ford wanted him to do something flashy, but it couldn’t happen too quickly for the audience to take it in. All the possibilities seemed to cancel each other out.

And then Yakima Canutt, Wayne’s friend and the stunt coordinator on the film offered an idea. When Canutt was a boy he had seen Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show. As the overland stage raced around the arena, a messenger trailing behind the stagecoach had carried a rifle with a large ring loop which allowed him to spin the rifle in the air, cocking it with one hand. The crowd went wild. Canutt said that it had been done thirty years ago and he still remembered the moment. More to the point, he had never seen anybody else do it.

Wayne sparked to the idea, as did Ford, so they had to make it work. Ford instructed the prop department to manufacture a ring loop and install it on a standard issue 1892 Winchester carbine. After the rifle was modified, Wayne began experimenting with the twirl move as Canutt remembered it, but there was a problem — the barrel of the rifle was too long — it wouldn’t pass cleanly beneath Wayne’s arm.

The Winchester went back to the prop department, where they sawed an inch or so off the end, then soldered the sight back on the shortened barrel.

With that minor adjustment, the move was suddenly effortless. Wayne began rehearsing the twirling movement that would mark his appearance in the movie he had been waiting more than ten years to make — a film for John Ford, his friend, his mentor, his idol, the man he called “Coach” or, alternately — and more tellingly — “Pappy.”

With any luck at all, he’d never have to go back to B westerns as long as he lived.

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Buffalo Bill’s Wild West and Congress of Rough Riders of the World.