Paul Helinski

This week Google announced a major change in the way it runs Google Shopping, which is the “Shopping” tab on the left when you search. Guns and gun stuff will no longer be allowed. Google Shopping will now comply with the rules for Google Adwords, which has not allowed advertising for guns for several years now. Google is an anti-2nd Amendment company. They always have been. This is not a new angle for Google. Like all of the Silicon Valley dogooders without a clue, Google is clueless.

At this point, who cares? As we explained in our Monday Memo that goes out to our stocking gun dealers here, this past week the Supreme Court said it was ok for the government to force you to buy something you don’t need or want. We aren’t going to cure America’s ills here at GunsAmerica, and 2nd Amendment freedom isn’t the worst of our freedom that the government has co-opted in the last several years. But we can explain what losing Google Shopping means for the gun industry, and for our 2nd Amendment freedom as it stands today, and for tomorrow.

In the first installment of this series, if you missed it, I ordered six M1 Garands from the Civilian Marksmanship Program, or CMP. The premise is that now is the time to buy this historical treasures, before they dry up and get really expensive, like the 1903 Springfield has since it dried up through the CMP. There are a few details I have learned since that first article, partially from a post on the CMP forum. I wish the members had commented on our article, which was read over 45,000 times the first day it was out. So we will correct a couple things, and lets go shoot the guns!

Soooo, we finally got a Springfield XD-S to play with and shoot. To to make a long story short, really thin, really nice, pleasure to shoot, completely reliable, go buy one. The XD-S, as we said back at SHOT in January, is a slam dunk for Springfield and the gun is everything you could want in a concealed carry firearm. You get six rounds of .45ACP punch in a tiny package, 4.6 inches tall, 6.3 inches long, and all of an inch thick. Big hands, small hands, fat hands and tall hands will find the XD-S easy to shoot and surprisingly not punishing.

Teaching a child the fundamentals of shooting and gun safety is best kept simple. Many of today’s top shooters cut their teeth as a young child on a single shot .22 bolt action. And if you ask any of them, “would you have preferred something cooler, with more shots” they will answer you in the negative. When you have only one shot at a time to concentrate on, you shoot one shot at a time, and you concentrate. That makes for great shooters, and that is why Savage brought this nifty little single shot rifle called the Rascal, to market. We first saw this gun at Media Day at the Range the day before SHOT Show 2012, and now we finally got a chance to really shoot one. Nice little gun! And at an MSRP of $174, just about anyone can teach their child or grandchild the fundamentals of good shooting for pennies a round.

You can only buy so many guns (well, not really), so lately we’ve been looking into things that make the guns you already own more effective, and also look much cooler. I ran into this rail system from Black Aces Tactical while researching another article, and I have to say, the Black Aces Tactical shotgun rail is the best in its class that I have found for this application. If you own a tactical shotgun and have always wanted to have the ability to install lights, lasers, red dots, real sights, whatever, at a mere 16 ounces and currently on sale for $179, the Black Aces shotgun rail system is something you should look into. It is available for the Remington 870/1100, Mossberg 500/590, Benelli M1/2/4, and even the Saiga.

This is our KSG. It is a 12 gauge bullpup shotgun made by Kel-Tec that holds a total of 15 rounds, 7 in each magazine tube and one in the chamber. It is outfitted with a front and rear open AR-15 type sight from Leapers/UTG, and the front sight has a laser that is activated [...]

I have been at war with pocket holsters since my first concealed carry permit back in New Hampshire in the 80s. Back then the only pocket holsters were leather pouches. They were simple and kept the gun upright in your pocket at first, but eventually even the best of them would slump and buckle, providing little benefit to carrying the gun alone in your pocket. For many years I even carried an AMT Backup 45 with no holster at all in my front pocket, because there was no holster that fit it well and gave me access to the gun. Now, almost 30 years later, due in part to the explosion of micro-pistols in .380, 9mm, and now .45ACP, there are a lot more options to carry a gun in your pocket. Many of them are made from new materials, and a lot more thinking went into making them than back in the day. The pocket holster of today has arrived.

More than not, the decision to buy a new gun comes from inside your heart. Even if you need a duty gun, or you have to pick from a list of allowable weapons for a specific job, most of us are going to buy the gun that feels right to us. For several generations of American gun owners, there is no gun that feels better or more right to buy than a Colt. Last weekend I was listening to Gun Talk Radio, and sure enough, a geezer gun nut called in to let Tom Gresham know that he had finally broken down and bought an AR-15. Why? Because he was finally able to buy a Colt.

Finding the perfect tactical rifle isn’t so simple for some folks. We have to complicate matters, because we just don’t want what everyone else has. Trust me on this one guys and gals. Nobody you know has the Juggernaut Tactical Rogue M1A Bullpup stock from US Tactical Supply. It is an aluminum bullpup masterpiece that will not only add just over 2 pounds to your M1A/M14, it will also be kind enough to set you back a righteous $899. Who can resist that?