New guns, old guns, feel all right.

It wasn't all just new guns and gear in Nashville. There was plenty of classic iron, too.

The Ruger Collectors were there, with plenty of single-actions.

Shades of Elmer Keith and Bill Jordan--they got .41 Magnums!

A Radom collector had dozens of old Polish military pistols made before and during the war.

And did someone say Luger? Here's a case full.

The Rock Island Auction company had some incredible weapons that they'll be selling soon. And yes, that's a 1903 with an extended "trench" magazine.

And there were companies making modern replicas of old west guns, like Dixie Gun Works here.

And a favorite of mine, Taylor's and Company, of Winchester, VA.

They'll be hosting an open house at their Winchester store, May 15th and 16th. See you there?

It was like Mecca for gun folks.

New and/or Improved gun stuff for 2016

As usual, Springfield Armory had their most-awesome M-1A rifles on display. Here are just two of them many, a Super Match (top) and an M-21 (below).

Someday, all .308 AR platforms will still be nowhere nearly as good as these M-1As.

Uberti has these two Model 1893 .45 Long Colt rifles ready to go, and they were so smooth that I'd have bought one or the other on the spot if I could have.

Henry has these two beautiful big-bore lever guns out this year. The top one is chambered for .45-70 Government, and the lower one is a .45 Long Colt.

They are slick-smooth, and backed by Henry's fantastic customer service policy that fixes anything on any Henry product, no questions asked.

Also competing in the big-bore lever gun field is Marlin, with these two 1893s, both chambered in .45-70 Government.

And that caliber is getting to be so popular with the serious hunters again that even Gibbs Rifle Company is re-working old .303 Enfield No 4 rifles into new .45-70s.

These rifles feature new wood, new barrels and a three-round magazine.

As can be expected with that cartridge, a butt pad is a necessity. Here they use the old ones from the #5 Enfields.

Just look at that bore.

They still ovver rebuilt 1903A3 and A4 Springfields as well, each built on a reactivated drill rifle receiver with a new barrel and stock. Yowsers!

Oh, look what Remington has back, re-worked for 2016: It's that R-51 again.

Last year, pretty much everyone who saw one even from a distance agreed that it wasn't ready for prime time, but Remington listened and they corrected the problems. This year, the slide and trigger feel pretty good and I suspect that people who buy them (Yeah, Bruce, I mean you.) will not be disappointed.

I'm still pretty conservative on new stuff though. Come see me when you've got a design that's been thoroughly time-tested. And of course Remington's got a few of those, too.

These R1 1911's in .45ACP were all tight and had incredible triggers on them. If Remington sends every production gun out with triggers like the ones on these show models, I'm buying one ASAP.

On the large end of the spectrum, Barrett was here with their semi-auto .50BMG rifles, including this M-107A1 suppressed version.

And wheile Barrett definitely sets the standard for .50BMG rifes, this bolt-action .50 offered by Bushmaster is a quality rifle in it's own right and perfect for those who don't have the cash for that spendy Barrett semi.

And for the tactical crowd who wants to shoot something in a more conventional caliber, Daniels Defense And Rock River Arms had something for everyone again this year.

Still too big? Well then maybe North American Arms has a derringer that's more your style.

Lots of quality optics were on display.

And suppressors, for those who want to be considerate shooters ad not annoy the neighbors.

Speaking of suppressors, I got a chance to see Advanced Armaments Corporation's new 5.56 SD suppressor that's going to replace their M4-2000 can.

Shorter, lighter and quieter. What's not to like?

As for Aaron, I practically needed a crowbar to pry him away from the Walter display.

Three days of this stuff. I'm still buzzing like a little kid who got locked in a candy store for a long week-end.

Medical class at the NRAAM

And this is what we do to gun-hating protesters when we catch them!

No, not really. (That'd be like picking on the short-bus kids and it's just wrong.) What we're seeing here is a demonstration on how to quickly and securely splint an arm.

One of the additional bonuses of the NRAAM is the lectures and seminars offered to members on a variety of subjects, and a great one the past two years has been a "shooter self care" class taught by Kelly Grayson of Ambulance Driver fame. Kelly, a long-time paramedic and genuinely nice guy, puts this class together and pours a ton of work into it as a public service to gun folks to teach those who want to learn what they can and should (or should not) do if someone is accidentally shot nearby or just keels over from a heart attack.

This four-hour class, which includes hands-on work with Automatic External Defibrillators (AEDs) and tactical tourniquets for bleeding control, offered invaluable instruction to those attendees who signed up, and the course fee covered the cost of a deluxe emergency first-aid kit that each student was taught how to use by Kelly, with the assistance of other volunteer medical public safety professionals EMS Artifact, JB on the Rocks and LawDog as well as your humble scribe. Additional valuable insights were offered by "students" Maureen and Aaron, a doctor and a lawyer respectively.

All that's missing is an indian chief...but we've got a guy who remembers fighting indians, if that counts.

(Again, I kid...he's really a retired military vet and accomplished author, but it should suggest the caliber of people that we had in Nashville this week-end, both in this class and out on the floor.)

The class taught many important concepts, from the obvious--how to stop bleeding, how to perform CPR--to the not-so-obvious: How to get proper emergency medical response into your local range or gun club. Do you know the actual address? GPS coordinates for a med-flight helicopter? Can you identify the proper space to clear for a medi-vac helicopter? And exactly what should you say when you're phoning in a report of an accidental gunshot wound at a gun club when you're calling 911?

In sum, it was a great class offered to great people by great people, and if you get the chance to attend next year in Louisville, it's four hours well invested.

Home from the National Rifle Association's Annual Meeting

And there was nothing quite so invigorating as spending 3 days in the company of 50,000 78,000 great American citizens who enjoy the shooting sports and support the Second Amendment.

I've got lots of pics, but here's a few for a start, just to give you a rough idea what the exhibit hall looked like. (Gun-hating liberals who might have found this page by accident, be sure that you've taken your blood pressure meds and that you're sitting on something that won't be ruined when it gets wet.)

Six acres of exhibits were here, consisting of booths and displays from virtually anybody who is anybody in the firearms and sport-shooting industry.

And who comes to see this stuff? Why, any NRA member who wants to...and fifty thousand seventy-eight thousand of them did, from all across America. Reportedly, every hotel for miles around Nashville was completely booked.

As much as the anti-gun crows likes to try to claim that gun owners are just a bunch of "angry white males", the crowd shots here tell a different story. Look at the women clearly visible in most every shot. Women were everywhere here, browsing and checking out guns and gear right along with the men.

And kids...lots of kids there, too. Nice to see tomorrow's generation of shooters getting started young.

Young and old, male and female, every ethnic group represented...true "average Americans" all united in pro-gun camaraderie and each one here on their own dime because they like this stuff and wanted to be here...So much more representative of America than this tiny group of a hundred or so protesters in the park a mile or so away, all wearing matching t-shirts that some deep-pocket anti-gun shill group bought for them. And half of that group was kids who were probably dragged out there by their mothers just to serve as props. Of course they got the news stories all week-end while the same media basically ignored the pro-gun majority inside and around the convention center.

Personally, I thought that it was great to be around so many like-minded people, all of whom seemed to be in a great mood. But again, it's really hard to be unhappy when you're surrounded by fellow gun-loving Americans in a sea of guns.

All these gun owners in one place...tens of thousands of them surrounded by guns on display as well as the ones that many brought with them.

A good time was had by all...and what a surprise--no one got shot anywhere near the convention center or the downtown area despite all of those armed citizens and guns everywhere.

Even Nashville's Finest seemed to be enjoying themselves.

I talked to a number of the police officers that were there, both inside and outside of the convention center, and all of them remarked about how orderly and friendly the crowd was. No problems reported and no convention-related arrests as far as the ones that I spoke to knew. One said that he almost never works big events because of the anti-cop attitude that large groups usually display, but that sort of thing was totally absent from this group, according to him. Another said that officers were literally begging to come work this event just because it's such easy money due to the overwhelming number of decent, law-abiding type of people here...plus guns! Most cops are gun folks too, and who doesn't like to get paid premium pay to look at guns?


Of course there was one protester there. He showed up and began pointing at us gun owners and proclaiming that we were all going to go to prison when Hillary takes office on 2017, but even he didn't get shot...the most interesting man in the world just ran him off with a plastic sword.

Flashback to New Orleans stupidity.

The year was 1998. Marc Morial, Mayor of the City of New Orleans, spearheaded an effort to bankrupt the gun manufacturers and dealers in this country by filing a lawsuit claiming that they were responsible for causing countless deaths and injuries due to the number of guns that the manufacturers and dealers sold every year. They ignored the fact that each of these guns were sold legally, in full accordance with federal, state and local laws. The lawsuit named every domestic manufacturer of firearms in America: Smith & Wesson, Sturm Ruger, Beretta U.S.A., Colt, Glock, and several smaller companies. It's purpose was clear: to bankrupt these companies and put them out of business. And in this effort, they had the full support of then-President William Clinton.

There was just one problem, though--one that the defendants and their National Rifle Association attorneys were quick to bring to light: For decades, the City of New Orleans had itself sold thousands of confiscated and surplus firearms to some of the same wholesalers that the targeted dealers used for distribution. In short, if any of these companies was guilty of anything, New Orleans was equally guilty.

This effort quickly tanked, and led to the passage of new laws nationwide designed to bar states and local units of government from bringing any more such asinine lawsuits. (Thanks, NRA!)

One gun in particular that the City of New Orleans took a lot of heat for selling: The Beretta 92F 9mm Semi-automatic pistol. New Orleans sold 700 of these pistols that were retired from the New Orleans Police Department as part of their effort to re-equip their police officers with new Glock handguns. Beretta and Glock--two of the companies that New Orleans did business with then turned around and sued. Talk about hypocrisy.

Well I recently came upon one of those Beretta 92's, complete with it's NOPD marking intact. I'd been looking for one of these pretty much since the days of that lawsuit, but they've been harder to find than Sen. Mary Landrieu's integrity.Here it is--Exhibit A in the response to Morial's stupid lawsuit--a New Orleans Police Department-marked pistol that the City of New Orleans made available to anyone with a little cash who could pass a federal background check.

I sold off all of my Beretta handguns a few years ago when times got tight, and to be honest, I've not missed them. I always found them to be a bit large and cumbersome for a 9mm and not quite as accurate as other guns in it's class. However, as a former resident of the Crescent City and as an observer of that lawsuit and the NRA's crushing defeat of the plaintiffs, I'd always wanted one of these. And I've searched for years without success, until today. As of today, I've finally got one.



I'm also proud to report that I took it right from the FFL dealer to the range, and it shot just the way that a Beretta shoots--totally reliably and as accurately as their muddy triggers allow. I'm happy.

I don't normally name my guns, but if I did, I would name this veteran of New Orleans "Katrina".