Viewpoints

Regarding your test and D grade of the Fulton Armory UPR in the May issue, we received the rifle back and test-fired it without doing anything to it. That is, we simply took it out of the shipping box, ran a patch down the bore to clear any potential obstruction and then just shot it. Shot it with the mag Roger Eckstine received, and with some mags off the shelf, with round counts of 4, 9, and 19. We even shot it with one additional round forced into the mag (10 in the 9-round mag, 20 in the 19-round mag), and we even held it loosely (not against a hard backstop like a shoulder) which can cause short-stroking in semiautos), and still it fired every round, every way, flawlessly. Not a single malfunction. Not one. The rifle has not been disassembled, cleaned, lubed, nothing. I have instructed that it remain this way—untouched—so we can test it again, and again. For a rifle that reportedly functioned so poorly it could not even be used to complete your testing, a rifle that performed so horribly that you failed it in a public venue (by dropping it from the test) without any communication/question/elucidation as to possible causes from the manufacturer is simply incomprehensible to me.

MOSCOW -- Irina Aervitz, vice president of the Federal News Service in Washington, had an interesting piece about Russian handgun ownership in the Moscow News newspaper. She wrote:

Louis Navellier has written on MSN Money: President Obama's nomination of federal appeals court Judge Sonia Sotomayor to replace retiring Supreme Court Justice David Souter heralds yet another victory for gun-makers. Yes, you read that right.

Charter Arms has released an explanation about why the company’s new rimless-ammunition firing revolver is not yet out.

Gov. Ritter vetoes bill that would have allowed some people with permits to carry concealed weapons to skip additional background checks each time they buy a gun.

The National Rifle Association has filed suit against the city of San Francisco, Mayor Gavin Newsom and Police Chief Heather Fong, taking aim at city laws it contends violate the Second Amendment right to bear arms.

Last week was big for me: I got two 'new' guns and a very personal wanding in Houston’s Municipal Court building. Nothing sends shivers up the leg of a gun owner like a nice pat-down and wanding, I always say. And though my shivers weren’t seemingly as pleasurable as lefty commentator Chris Matthews’ were at the prospect of an Obama presidency, I’ll remember the tingles fondly anyway. The back story: One gorgeous Sunday in November last year, I was taking my daughter to church (really!) when I tapped the brakes to break my 60-mph highway cruise and began coasting off the Katy Freeway down an exit ramp to a feeder road. Still coasting at the bottom of the ramp, I saw a person 100 yards or so ahead of me standing smack-dab in the middle of the four-lane feeder road—very odd, and I thought at the time, very dangerous. That person turned out to be Houston Police Department Officer Calvillo running a radar gun, with which he clocked me doing 51 in a 35-mph construction zone.

Last week was big for me: I got two 'new' guns and a very personal wanding in Houston’s Municipal Court building. Nothing sends shivers up the leg of a gun owner like a nice pat-down and wanding, I always say. And though my shivers weren’t seemingly as pleasurable as lefty commentator Chris Matthews’ were at the prospect of an Obama presidency, I’ll remember the tingles fondly anyway. The back story: One gorgeous Sunday in November last year, I was taking my daughter to church (really!) when I tapped the brakes to break my 60-mph highway cruise and began coasting off the Katy Freeway down an exit ramp to a feeder road. Still coasting at the bottom of the ramp, I saw a person 100 yards or so ahead of me standing smack-dab in the middle of the four-lane feeder road—very odd, and I thought at the time, very dangerous. That person turned out to be Houston Police Department Officer Calvillo running a radar gun, with which he clocked me doing 51 in a 35-mph construction zone.

I was surprised at the lack of accuracy of the SA58 in your recent test. I’ve had a different experience. The rifle I shot was bought in early 1999 and was/is pretty much the 'standard' FAL version: carrying handle, 20-inch standard barrel, sheet-metal barrel guard (not quite standard, but close), typical iron sights, plain old factory trigger. My accuracy results for representative five-shot groups ran 3.25 inches, 2.6 inches, 2.75 inches, and 3.25 inches at 100 yards, using iron sights and Winchester white box ammo. My worst group was better than your best group from the data chart. That’s without a scope, without a fancy trigger, without a fancy barrel, and with white box only. Either DSA quality has hurtled downhill in the last few years, or there was something wrong with your rifle—or possibly I got a really sweet and unusual rifle (that’ll be the day). You can probably guess I’m voting for number two. I’ll also say that you can only test the rifle you have, not the one you don’t; so if you got a lemon, them’s the breaks.

I was surprised at the lack of accuracy of the SA58 in your recent test. I’ve had a different experience. The rifle I shot was bought in early 1999 and was/is pretty much the 'standard' FAL version: carrying handle, 20-inch standard barrel, sheet-metal barrel guard (not quite standard, but close), typical iron sights, plain old factory trigger. My accuracy results for representative five-shot groups ran 3.25 inches, 2.6 inches, 2.75 inches, and 3.25 inches at 100 yards, using iron sights and Winchester white box ammo. My worst group was better than your best group from the data chart. That’s without a scope, without a fancy trigger, without a fancy barrel, and with white box only. Either DSA quality has hurtled downhill in the last few years, or there was something wrong with your rifle—or possibly I got a really sweet and unusual rifle (that’ll be the day). You can probably guess I’m voting for number two. I’ll also say that you can only test the rifle you have, not the one you don’t; so if you got a lemon, them’s the breaks.

In a recent Gun Owners of America email, the group called out Republicans who support gun control, in particular Tom Ridge of Pennsylvania.

Three professors of finance and economics in Texas wrote a gun rights–related op-ed piece that was distributed to several newspapers in the state last week. In the article, they said, 'As college professors, we want to reduce the odds of a Virginia Tech massacre happening on a Texas college campus. That's why we encourage the Texas Legislature to allow concealed carry on the state's college campuses.'