All Episodes
Previous Next
July 6, 2023 - Louder with Crowder
36:55
GUN WEEK w/ Mrgunsngear | Ep 4. Gun Myths Debunked: Chapter 2
| Copy link to current segment

Time Text
It's Gun Week!
Now, the Founding Fathers understood that only an armed people could truly be a free people.
So this week, I invite you to join me and Mug Club's resident gun aficionado, Mr. Guns N' Gears, as we tackle the subject of firearms from every angle possible.
In today's episode, let's examine and debunk some of the most egregious technical myths regarding firearms and how they've become so pervasive.
It's the 4th of July and firearms are as American as, I guess, the American flag.
They're very American.
You know what?
I think that's a good thing.
You can hit the like button if you like the fact that the United States fought off the world's greatest superpower of one century only to become the world's only superpower of the next century for all of its flaws.
And this is installment number two of most common gun myths that you hear.
We wanted to separate them into two categories because we have Mr. Guns and Gear here, I highly recommend that you go check out his channel, check out his content.
He's forgotten more about firearms than I'll ever know, I think is the expression.
It's been a long day.
I'm good with it.
And I'm distracted by his chromedomia.
The shine.
Well, you know, we put on some powder.
We did.
You don't wear sunscreen.
I don't.
You refuse to wear sunscreen.
I do.
When we were out at the range, if you went and watched the ballistics video, we were all delirious because we had lost probably about 10 pounds of water that day.
Yeah.
It was hot.
It was legit hot.
Well, you're surrounded by burning tires in a valley in Texas.
No wind.
So we wanted to specifically get into now more of the technical myths that you may hear about firearms as opposed to sort of constitutional myths that you might hear or lack therein as far as constitutional application.
This is more what you might hear about firearms that might scare you away from Guns in general.
And this bring- we'll do seven.
Maybe plus one in there.
Myth number seven, that you've probably heard quite a bit and run into, is the AR-15 is a weapon of war that was intended only for military use.
When they issued the following statement, they said, Our father, Eugene Stoner, designed the AR-15 and subsequent M-16 as a military weapon to give our soldiers an advantage over the AK-47.
He died long before any mass shootings occurred, but we do think he would have been horrified and sickened as anyone, if not more so by these events.
And they went on to tell me that he personally, although he was an avid shooter and an outdoorsman, never owned the AR-15, his key invention.
He never used it for personal defense.
I've held an AR-15 in my hand.
I wish I had it.
It is as heavy as ten boxes that you might be moving.
And the bullets that is utilized, a .50 caliber, these kinds of bullets, need to be licensed and do not need to be on the streets.
The AR-15 is a derivative of the AR-10 which was designed first.
Military contracts were awarded for that to Cuba, Sudan, as well as others.
But then the AR-15 was specifically was labeled commercially the Colt Sporter.
So that was available to civilians.
And then of course the M16, and there were some early variants as well, got into the
M16A1 that was adopted by the army.
Right.
Yeah.
It was marked, you know, the M16 was basically available for, it was being pushed for military
contract and the AR-15 was simultaneously being pushed as a civilian firearm for sporting
or hunting.
Right.
And so they had much, much more success with the civilian sales than they did the military.
The air force adopted what we would consider, excuse me, a M16 prior to the army, but very
small numbers.
So for years, the majority of AR-15s being made were going to the civilian market only.
Right.
Well, I think that one is, let me consider that myth cooked.
And by the way, a reason that they're so popular, we'll get into this more later on, is that AR-15s are, they're popular because they're versatile.
They're easy to handle.
You can go back to Long Guns 101.
There's a reason that they are popular, and it's not because they should be used only by Navy SEALs as a scary black rifle.
It's because it's very easy for people who are inexperienced shooters to handle.
And hey, that's important if people are trying to get a firearm that is controllable for them.
Especially when we're trying to bring new folks into the community, right?
Something that's lightweight, easy to shoot well, easy to hit what you're aiming at.
Right.
It's the perfect weapon for a lot of scenarios.
I've never had anyone shoot an AR-15 who was a new shooter and not find it one of the easiest firearms to shoot.
Once they get past the sound.
Agreed.
But that's any rifle like that that's firing around that quickly.
Especially when you compare it to a shotgun that Joe Biden's recommending.
Yes!
You don't need an AR-15.
It's harder to aim.
It's harder to use.
And in fact, you don't need 30 rounds to protect yourself.
Buy a shotgun.
I mean, in all seriousness, for a new shooter to be able to proficiently handle a shotgun is difficult.
Right.
Not so with the AR-15.
Well, it's just a rule of kinetic energy that people understand.
I haven't fired many double-barreled shotguns, but I've fired pump shotguns, and that alone is far more recoiling than, for example, a semi-automatic shotgun, because part of that energy is used to cycle the next round.
Right, or even a pump-action shotgun, the biggest malfunction, or the most common malfunction people have is called short-shocking, where essentially they don't run the action hard enough.
You have to do that after every round.
AR-15, you don't.
Right.
Yeah.
It's one of those things.
Every single woman I've taken it goes, wow, that is surprisingly easy to shoot because they're thinking, uh, well, I guess I believe what they've been told that it's this unbelievable unwieldy rifle.
Um, and it couldn't be further from the truth, which brings us to another, this one's a fun myth.
You, you were laughing.
We're going over this myth number six.
I don't know how common it is, but I have run into people who believe it, and we certainly know that former Vice President Biden believes it.
The myth is that 9mm blows the lung out of the body.
A 9mm bullet blows the lung out of the body.
Okay, here's the truth.
Uh, no.
No, it's simply not true.
Yes, I mean, we'll get into it more, but, um, Incorrect.
Yes.
Completely.
But, uh, I mean, okay, I should clarify.
It would be possible for maybe a portion of one's lung to be carried.
I mean, if you're, if for, if it's like two babies get into a gunfight, that might be possible.
Right.
But a grown adult, the idea that a nine millimeter would blow a lung out of a body, this is someone, again, who It's either gross incompetence or it is absolute dishonesty.
I'll give you concrete evidence for that.
Tupac was shot in the lung and had to have it surgically removed afterwards.
And he was shot with a 9mm.
Really?
Yes.
So his lung was still in his body and had to be removed afterwards.
Wow.
So there you go.
If Joe Biden was right, they could have skipped a step.
Indeed.
Indeed.
It would have already been out.
And here's something else, too, that I think you should know about.
Look, the 9mm, as a matter of fact, so 9mm has become ubiquitous.
It's become far more popular.
Would we say that it sort of took the place of other calibers after the famous Miami shootout?
The 1986 Miami shootout, yeah.
1986 Miami shootout, where before that, police officers were often carrying either revolvers, often in .357, right?
Or they would carry often Colt 1911s, you know, variants therein, which would be .45.
Correct.
Now, to be clear, both a .357 Magnum and a .45 ACP are significantly more powerful rounds.
.357 for sure.
For sure.
It's inarguable.
And .45, obviously, people will say with modern ballistics, it's more comparable, but it's a much heavier bullet traveling.
Historically, .45, .357, these are seen as more powerful rounds.
9mm sort of became the round of choice because it is effective enough while still being controllable and can be in a package that could include a capacity like, for example, a Glock, a Walther, some of the modern firearms.
SIG just got a military contract.
My preference is Walther.
Thanks to them for sponsoring the studio.
Where you have something that's controllable, Effective enough kind of minimum effective dose right and it also has minimal recoil as well So you can get your follow-up shots faster.
So with handguns we talked about incapacitation in the previous video and With handguns, you don't want to count on a one-shot stop because it's highly unlikely You want to put as many rounds on target as quickly as possible until the threat stops essentially so nine millimeter allows you to do that easier than the other cartridges simply because they have more recoil and Right.
And I think, this seems like remedial, I know we'll have people in the, and believe me, I understand where you're coming from and I appreciate you, if you're a firearm enthusiast, and everyone knows that 9mm doesn't blow, but not everybody knows that.
They don't.
A lot of people have only heard 9mm referred to in, you know, hip-hop songs about violence.
And they hear 9mm and they think that it's this show style.
I mean, when I played Goldeneye as a kid, I thought that the golden gun, which I think was just a Luger, if I'm not mistaken.
I'm not sure.
I don't know, but I thought that was the most powerful, the most powerful gun in existence.
Unfortunately, in a lot of other countries as well, 9mm is banned because it's a quote-unquote military cartridge.
So a lot of people have that perception as well.
Like there's a lot of countries that 380 is very popular for civilian use because 9mm is banned.
And I'll get them in my comments saying, oh, 9mm is so much more powerful than other rounds.
And I'm like, what are you talking about?
But that's where it comes from.
You'll run into people like that.
They'll say, no one needs an AR-15.
Or they'll say, I've heard people say, no one needs a 9mm.
Right.
Just get a shot.
Do you have any idea how much more lethal buckshot is from a 12-gauge and a 9-millimeter?
It's not even close.
I mean, it's essentially 8, 9, 9 millimeters at once, almost.
They're slightly smaller, but it's pretty darn close.
Right.
And so people say, well, it's round.
We get it.
The point is, it's like...
At least a handful of 9mm coming out.
This idea that a shotgun is controllable?
No.
The idea that it's not as lethal?
At close range, it could very easily be argued it's the most lethal.
Of common firearms, within 25 yards, no doubt, 12 gauge is the most lethal.
It's just that you're most familiar with it.
And so they want to keep you disconnected.
They want to keep you unfamiliar with it.
They want 9mm to be something that's scary off in the distance.
Your double barrel or pump shotgun, 12 gauge shotgun, is far more deadly, far more difficult to control, and certainly more scary to a home intruder.
So that's why there's nothing wrong with it.
If you like your pump shotgun, go ahead and keep it.
I don't recommend shooting it into the air.
Yeah.
I think you have to do it off your porch, if I remember correctly.
Yes.
That is the recommended technique.
Yes.
Isn't it funny?
It's like, hey, hold on a second.
When we talk about, you know, these surreptitious recordings, it's like, well, former Vice President Biden advocated a crime.
Literally.
On camera.
as advice. It could be multiple crimes too, depending on where you live, not just firing
the gun, but firing it in a residential area. Yeah, in the air. Right. It has to come down.
Yes. It's not the Middle East. No. And this brings us to another myth, and we did the
ballistics video, which you can click the link and go watch that. You hear this a lot. I don't,
I don't want to throw them under the bus, but even Pops Crowder believed this when I was young and I
He said, well, you know what?
Actually that the 22 will bounce around the skull like a ping pong ball because it's so small.
And here's the truth.
No.
Now, it wouldn't really matter if you didn't have some people.
I've had people in follow up with, that's why I carry a 22.
Right.
Because I pointed at their face and it's going to be like a pinball machine.
Right.
Now, I don't know where it comes from.
Whether or not it was because the mob like to use silence 22s for certain hits or something like that
I have no idea, but it's absolutely not true the 22 performs like every other bullet just smaller and lighter
But yeah, there's no bouncing around they can curve they can yaw
But bounce no yeah, or bouncing or sometimes what people will refer to is if they can tumble which means you know if
it goes In it might do a little bit of do a little bit of this
action I don't know how much you can, I don't have a monitor, see on camera, where it does a little bit of this, but any, any, any bullet can do that.
Correct, and they'll do it more, in fact.
Right.
Larger calibers.
But a lot of people believe, let me ask you, comment below, did you believe that one?
A lot of people did, and then, did you ever just go through the basic The basic noggin test, where you go, hold on a second, okay, basically there's brain, think of a bunch of jello in your head, right, and some solid, depending, in my case it's mostly jello, and it's bouncing off a skull, which would be moist, so it's not that much of sort of a ricochet, you know, ricocheting surface, and it would bounce back through jello and, you know, relatively hard matter,
Back again, of course it makes no sense and it defies physics, but you have a lot of people who believe it and that's because of, sometimes, such an irrational fear of firearms that people choose to believe myths because they don't want to be bothered to do research.
Right.
It's also a funny one.
It is.
It is.
But it's, yes, completely debunked.
And something else, I guess, that we could probably touch on at this kind of same point in time, the myth that, well, actually, the .22 is the most deadly round.
Because at some point in time, there were more deaths from the .22 than other calibers, and that's just because it was the caliber that most people had.
Right.
.22 is still extremely popular and probably I don't have the data on this.
I'm making it up.
But up until two or three decades ago, it was probably the most common caliber in America in terms of firearms owned.
Yeah.
I mean, because everyone gets a 22 to either do like critter maintenance.
You know, you have critters around the house that you don't want or you want to train your kid or you want to cheaply hunt.
And there's a lot of small game that can be hunted effectively with 22.
So I know a lot of people I know grew up Yeah.
Like, literally walking the woods with a .22.
Yeah.
So.
Yeah.
I mean, today, I don't know if it would be enough, considering that, you know, you have people, uh... I mean, they're drag shows for kids.
My point is, you have no idea what's lurking around the woods at this point.
I'm not so much worried about four-legged animals.
I'm worried about, you know, if you see a paneled van, I would say, you know, 9mm or higher.
Yeah, I agree with that.
Don't take it that seriously, YouTube.
All right, something else.
This came from actually Nancy, and she's a very, very smart woman, but we just sort of compiled these from what people here actually believe, and she had heard, this is myth number four, that the .22 caliber has a lot or a disproportionate number of spontaneous firings that it's more likely to accidentally discharge.
Have you run into this?
A lot of people believe in that?
I've heard it.
I don't think there's any truth to it at all.
The only way that I could think it might have proliferated is that there just was more 22s.
Right.
But other than that, no.
22, for folks that don't know, is a rimfire cartridge.
So most of the cartridges that we're talking about are center fired, meaning they have to be struck in the center of the back of the cartridge, whereas 22 doesn't.
But I can't see how being a rimfire cartridge would cause a discharge.
Yeah, well, what is true is typically because it's rimfire, right, it's easier to mass produce, and so you end up with significantly lower quality ammo.
That is absolutely true.
This could maybe be true if in a fit of frustration from having another non-discharging at all .22, which is very common, you smack your piece of crap gun saying fire, and it accidentally discharges.
Yeah, maybe, but that is true.
With rimfires, a lot of Well, there's a lot of reasons I don't recommend rimfires for self-defense, but that is one of them.
They're definitely less reliable in terms of ignition of the powder.
We were pretty surprised with the ballistics results with that.
We had a .22 that penetrated 16 inches out of a pistol.
And tumbled a little bit.
Yes.
Kind of a surprising wound channel.
Very surprising.
So Federal makes a round called Punch .22, which is designed for that very use.
And they charge a ton of money for it.
It's super expensive and it performs just like that.
So to see that with just common ammo.
Did we ever find out what that Is that right?
I feel like it was very old, like from the 80s or something.
Winchester Super X. Winchester Super X, we're being told, is what it was.
We cannot confirm, nor deny, just to be clear, but all of us... I think we were like, was that 22 Magnum?
Is that just a basic?
Really?
I think we said, are these the Mini Mags or something?
And then we were like, no, it's just an old... Someone went, let me check!
Like the never ending story blew off the dust.
I was like, oh no, it's just these.
Yeah.
I don't want to disparage it, but not too impressive, I guess, to people in the know.
There you go.
There you go.
Um, okay.
Here's a myth.
That you really wanted.
And you'd think it would be done with the ballistics test that we did.
I'd recommend go click that video.
And I'm sorry, I love him.
He's a great, but Brian Callen believed this one.
Right.
And it's because, and you know this, someone said, someone told him who was former Special Forces, that part is true.
Of course.
Said all you need, and this is myth number three, all you need for home defense is birdshot.
But I didn't know that if you're defending your hold with a shotgun, the formula dictates that you're supposed to buy both boxes.
This was not a formula that I was familiar with.
It goes like this.
There's six shots in a 12-gauge shotgun, so when you load the gun, you load it like this.
First shot, bird shot.
Next shot, buck shot.
Bird shot, and then after that, gun's Jamaican.
Buck shot, buck shot, buck shot.
How often do you hear people say that? All the time and I'll just go out there on a limb and say
special operators rarely using birdshot. Right. It's just not a thing. Yeah. But yeah, people do
say it all the time and one of the things that they recommend it for is a lack of quote-unquote
over penetration for a home defense type scenario like i.e.
you don't want your bullets to go through the walls into your neighbor's house or something
like that. Right. And to be fair.
I don't want that either. It's not going to over penetrate because it's not even going to penetrate.
Yes!
So I think the gel test we did, the pellets were between three and six inches total.
Like six was max and that wasn't a lot of them.
And that's gel test, you know, you're not, I mean, keeping in mind like someone's wearing a jacket.
It looked like a sesame seed bagel.
Literally.
Yeah.
Literally.
So yeah, the FBI recommends anywhere between 12 to 18 inches of penetration for reliable quote-unquote stops.
And yeah, it's obviously nowhere near that, not even close.
And I argue often that if you're talking about penetration and what you actually want for most shooting scenarios, particularly civilian shooting scenarios, i.e.
law enforcement are not military.
You want to err on the side of a little bit more penetration
than a little bit less.
Reasons for that, people are getting fatter, number one.
There's that, it's very real.
You have to penetrate further to hit the vitals.
And then- Oh my gosh, if you look at,
just now I'm gonna say figuratively, but like half the Victoria's Secret models,
they probably wouldn't even feel birdshot.
Right, literally, it wouldn't reach any of their organs at all.
No.
And it's sad, but it's true.
Yeah.
I mean, think about what?
Have you guys actually seen fat when they actually show you fat?
We did that in high school.
And if they do that, this is what five pounds of fat looks like.
This is what five pounds of muscle looks like.
It's very similar to the ballistics gelatin.
The birdshot would very easily get caught in six inches of fat.
Yep, for sure.
Yeah.
So there's just I highly.
And clothes too.
Right.
I was about to say jackets.
Winter clothes.
Heavy jackets, depending on where you live.
Right.
I mean, there's stories of confirmed stories from uh the korean war where the chinese
jackets stopped some of the 30 caliber bullets that were being shot by american soldiers yeah um
so that's a 30 caliber bullet we're not talking about birdshot you know i mean what's birdshot
gonna do it's not gonna get close clear i hate to do this no one here is saying that their
jackets were bulletproof No.
What we are saying is that it added complications if they had winter coats, they had those jackets which were very, you know, tightly woven.
Correct.
And most of those were M1 carbines to be clear, which is a not very powerful round for a rifle.
And there was distance involved so the bullets weren't going fast.
There's factors there.
We're not saying it.
What we're saying is it didn't penetrate deep enough to cause the kind of wound that you would need.
To cause the soldier to stop.
Cause a soldier to stop.
Just because you know people are going to try.
I do, I know.
I shouldn't have brought that up.
No, but I understand exactly what you're talking about.
And this is one of those things too.
The birdshot.
So we have these numbers.
We had several portions of the birdshot only going three inches.
The majority of it.
Yeah, the majority of it.
It's from the ballistics video, which I think we're playing for you now.
The average is six inches.
And then with 12 gauge, when you're talking about buckshot, 21 inches and that's a significant difference and that's
double a buckshot to be clear.
So for folks that don't don't know double up buckshot is relatively large projectiles
for shotguns.
Uh, they make other buckshot loads like they make a number one buckshot and then number
four buckshot as well, which are smaller but still have that buckshot effect of penetration.
So um, if somebody is looking at that number of average of 21 inches, let's say, and they're
like, oh, that's a lot of penetration.
I'm not comfortable with it.
I recommend going down to either number one buckshot.
You're going to take, on average, two to three inches of penetration off.
Number four will take about another two to three inches of penetration off and still give you good lethality and not risk what we saw with birdshot.
Why do you think this is so good?
This is one that is very common.
I can't tell you how many people have said, you know, I just keep birdshot in my shotgun.
It's extremely common.
That's fantastic for home defense.
Why do you think it's so common?
I think it's people, number one, not understanding ballistics.
There's that.
Um, and then people use it to hunt birds and the birds die and they're like, Oh, that must work well on people.
And that's just not the case.
I remember when I first heard that, I thought, and I didn't know much about firearms back then, and I've never been bird hunting.
I thought, Oh, well, I guess that guy's gone.
And it's, it was really more of a nuisance.
Right?
He was fine.
He apologized for Dick Cheney.
He apologized to Dick Cheney!
Correct.
Which, I don't know how that happened, but when we were talking about this, we were saying, yeah, this myth, we were going, and Ginger Snap, who works with us in research, he said, wait, people say Birdshot is, he's from Kansas, he said, my friend was shot with Birdshot and he can still mostly see out of that eye.
Oh yeah, there's a video online of a guy, breaks into a house, and it's like,
unfortunately it's a woman, shoots him with birdshot.
He, at the time, is maybe five yards away.
He runs towards her, grabs a gun, and hits her in the head with it.
So he was completely not impacted by it at all.
And I know what some people say, well yeah, I bet you don't wanna be standing in front of my,
no one's saying that we wanna be shot with birdshot, but add PCP to the mix, right?
Add some kind of a thick coat.
And by the way, I do think that with birdshot, a few layers and a thick coat.
Oh, it'll stop it. Yeah.
It will. Which would stop it.
I mean, I used to cheat in paintball, where we would put on more so that it wouldn't hurt
so you'd feel invincible.
Obviously, paintball's not as severe as birdshot.
But it's not even close, just to be clear.
This is a very pervasive myth.
Birdshot is not an adequate choice for home defense.
If you disagree, please comment below.
And hit like if you don't like that people disagree.
Yeah, I was gonna say, if you disagree, Yes, you're wrong.
To be clear, there's room.
For example, we were talking about .380.
Now some people argue, and I understand why they're both sides of this, with modern ammunition that you can get a .380 in a hollow point that can penetrate deeply enough to effectively expand.
But, historically, there was a strong case to be made, and some still can make it, with .380, that using ball ammo, meaning basic ammo that is not a hollow point, is a better idea because you run the risk of underpenetration.
There are discussions like that, that I think both sides have valid points.
There is nothing valid about birdshot for home defense.
I agree.
I agree.
Unless you're being attacked by Canadian geese, and that does happen.
It actually happens where I live a lot.
One of my neighbor's kids was actually mauled by a Canadian goose.
That's a horrible way to go.
He's alive, but he had a bunch of plastic surgery on his face.
It was sad.
Yeah, because they grab and they shake.
That's the thing.
People think they don't have teeth, but it's like a vice grip and then they shake.
Yeah, his son was about two.
It was not good.
You know what's horrible with it?
Joe Louis is even afraid of them.
My dog, one time he was running, we were at a lake in Oklahoma, and he was running, there were three Canadian geese, and he just kind of ran up, and then they all just spread their wings, and he was like, I don't even want to anyway, and he ran off.
But he saved his face.
I'm good.
Yeah.
So, keep one rifle for the Canadian geese.
They're not endangered.
I don't care.
I don't think so.
Shoot the Canadian geese.
But it's something else for non-geese related miscreants.
Peter's gonna love that.
Yeah, exactly.
I don't care.
And don't get me started on the burrowing owl.
Oh gosh, you spend time in Florida, you know exactly what I'm talking about.
Yes, I do.
Alright, this brings us to myth number two while we're on shotguns.
Um, that you don't need to aim them.
So, Jill, if there's ever a problem, just walk out on the balcony here, or walk out, put that double-barrel shotgun, and fire two blasts outside the house.
I promise you, whoever's coming in is not gonna... You don't need an AR-15.
It's harder to aim, it's harder to use, and in fact, you don't need 30 rounds to protect yourself.
Buy a shotgun.
Buy a shotgun. There you go. Just, I mean, first off, that doesn't even really necessarily apply
the Biden clip applying here. It's just funny. We want to roll again. But, you know, because
if you're firing in the air, you wouldn't be aiming at anything. Right. Maybe the voice is in your head.
But, but if you are actually dealing with an attacker, we'll say aim it in the general
vicinity. And I've heard this a lot. And it's it's fine.
Do it from the hip, right here, like the old lady in Bugs Bunny.
Or just point it down the hallway.
Right, yes, exactly.
The truth... The truth is, it really depends on the load you're using and the type of shotgun, but as a general rule, sort of a baseline to go off of a buckshot is going to
expand in terms of the group pattern at about one inch for every yard.
Now you can change that with different chokes, you can change it with different ammunition
that's designed to spread less or spread more, but with a, it's called a cylinder bore, which
is like your standard Remington 870 home defense gun has.
With that, you can expect a spread of about an inch at every yard, which means at 10 yards, which is pretty far for a home defense shooting.
For a home defense, it'd be pretty far.
I mean, if you live in the house in the shining.
Right, exactly.
I mean, that's this much on your chest, right?
And that's at 10 yards.
So you definitely have to aim.
Yeah.
Not only would you have to aim, but again, if you're talking about the risk of, you know, walls, obviously.
Some could argue you'd want to be more accurate to make sure that you're not off-center.
But this idea that it's going to be... Remember when, in the old Bugs Bunny, I don't know how many times I've referenced Bugs Bunny, the old cartoons was like the bees would turn into one big giant bee and they'd think that that's what a shotgun is.
Like, at five yards, it's a stop sign.
No.
Of death, and it's not even close.
And honestly, you don't want it to be.
No!
So, for lethality, you want them to be closer together, for sure.
That's why, as I mentioned, a lot of people will add chokes, and a choke basically is just a screw-in device that screws into the end of your barrel, and it forces the rounds to come together as they exit, so that way they stay in a tighter pattern.
Right.
So, a lot of people use that for that very reason, to keep them tighter, because a lot of cases, that's what you want.
Home defense, I would argue, that's what you want.
Now to be fair, going back to the birdshot, which we hate, aside from Canadian geese, that's a much wider spread.
It is.
Because there's so many projectiles.
Correct.
But again, it also depends on the joke as well.
Right, but a typical birdshot, let's say at 10 yards, compared to... Will spread more.
That would be, I mean, if buckshot, let's say, would this be about fair for buckshot, like you were saying, something like that?
Maybe a little bit more.
At 10 yards, what would birdshot Yeah, you're gonna add about... Might be a stop sign.
About a third, I'd say.
33% at least.
Yeah.
But again, it varies a lot by the round you're using, but it definitely... All things being equal, which they never are, birdshot will spread more.
It doesn't matter though, because it's still just birdshot.
Correct.
Who cares about that?
Oh, you know what?
I guess... Oh, okay.
We do have a plus one in here.
All right.
But first, before that, the number one, and this is one Look, thanks to everyone who served their country, to be clear, okay?
We appreciate it.
You are more of a man or woman than myself.
I mean, I was raised in Canada, so I couldn't really serve here, but thank you.
However, This myth that we hear quite a bit is that oh mil spec means it's the best or mil spec means it's superior where sometimes it's just used it's used as a marketing term correct it's used as a marketing term but it's also a baseline standard exactly that's really what it is for military weapons and a lot of folks
like competitive shooters, for example, that have these $3,000 race guns,
they're always like, don't call my gun Mil-Spec, that's trash, they get offended.
So, but yeah, Mil-Spec is literally what it says, it's the military specification for a given item.
So on the AR-15, it's the specification for the barrel, it's the specification for the receiver,
it's the specification for the stock, et cetera.
So that's what Mil-Spec means.
Now, it can be a good baseline, if you don't know anything,
and you buy something that's Mil-Spec, quote unquote, you know, at least it's been tested
to a certain standard, right?
So I'm not saying Mil-Spec's bad, but it doesn't mean that it's better than anything for sure.
Well, you will get some people, you know, again, thank you to everyone who served, but then you'll get the sometimes people who are referred to as vet bros, like, no, no, I only use this mil spec and they'll make fun of someone else.
Well, hold on a second, actually, like you're saying, that's the minimum baseline of quality.
But even by the way, some things that are mil spec, soldiers in some cases, especially special forces, they will level up and get something that's better than basic.
I was just about to say that.
So a lot of like, take the AR-15, for example.
A lot of the current changes that are happening with the air pattern guns in the military are coming from the three-gun world and the competitive world.
So like, for example, now they're adding longer handguards, free-float handguards to enable shooters to basically shoot them better, more proficiently.
Those are not mil spec, but because they're being adopted by units and being tested by units now
For example, the latest one has been the URGI, which is the upper receiver
Improvement I believe that's what it stands for But I had a UTI. Yeah. Yeah, just drink some cranberry.
That's about say yeah, so but the URGI I think it's another big ploy just just by big ocean spray
Is that a thing? Yeah, it's big big cranberry big cranberry But the URGI
Basically, it's been adopted by lots of military units now and all of the influence on it has come from competitive
shooting Just to make it faster. So the mil spec is
Number one, evolving.
And it's evolving because sometimes, not always, there's better than mil-spec, so why not make that the new mil-spec, right?
And I don't necessarily know how standardized it is, where sometimes people will slap it in a magazine ad or sometimes online.
The point is, don't just look for that term and think that you have your bases covered, right?
Great firearms out there that wouldn't probably just list mil-spec, and there's some not-so-great firearms that have been marketing themselves and using the term mil-spec.
So that's why we wanted to address that, because you will have some people say, hey, I know mil-spec.
I also know birdshot.
We have a plus one here, but you know, the plus one is you should never dry fire your weapon, and I don't know that's not Not true, unless you have an older school revolver where it's a firing pin.
Right, or rimfire guns.
Right, or rimfire guns.
But the plus one that I wanted to address is kind of continuing on, but it wasn't really like a myth that's that pervasive, but you hear it a lot and it's stupid and it bothers me.
This is just sort of, I guess, let's call it the amalgamate of a lot of these other myths that then people become married to, where you'll hear, for example, and this is with the military culture a little bit, say, I carry my gun Israeli style.
Oh, God.
Here we go.
Because if it's good enough for the IDF, it's good enough for me.
Now, to be clear, Israeli style means carrying a handgun, right?
With empty chamber.
Empty chamber.
And a full magazine.
And a full magazine.
Meaning, before you get into some kind of an active shooting scenario, you would have to rack that slide.
Now, it is technically true that many members of the Israeli military carry this way.
And many do not, just to be clear.
Right, and many do not.
But the reason that it's even permissible in that scenario, just to be clear, is because a lot of people hear IDF.
And again, Thank you, Jews, for all that you do.
And IDF, like, I get it.
Somebody's gonna cut that clip.
Thank you, Jews, for all that you do.
Thank you, IDF.
Badass Jews, we get it.
And by the way, the intel that they have is unbelievable, okay?
It is.
But you also have to understand, like we said with MilSpec, meaning a baseline of quality, you know, you do have people, it's mandatory, right, to go into the Israeli military.
The reason that they have to have someone carried Israeli-style with an empty chamber is because it's going to be carried literally by Gal Gadot.
Not because it's the most effective way to be ready for an armed conflict, but because you want to make sure that people who have no business being in the military, and I don't know if she could have been a great soldier, I have no idea.
I don't either.
But there are plenty of people who have no business being in the military who do find themselves in the Israeli military, so it's, look, Just carry it with an empty chamber and the safety on.
You're probably never going to use it anyway.
And, you know, don't brush your hair with it.
Yeah, for sure.
And I obviously carrying it that way is better than not carrying anything.
But to assume that you're going to have two hands available in a self-defense situation is an assumption I don't want to make.
Right.
Because it's very possible that you won't.
Right.
So, yeah, not a big fan of IDF style.
And to your point, it's not recommended because it's good.
Right.
It's kind of recommended because it's just super safe.
Right.
And everyone's afraid of the guy with the gun.
This happens a lot for people with liability, right?
For example, these are other myths that you can make, like, oh, having your firearm, and this depends too, if you get, you get the wrong judge in this country.
Was your firearm in a biometric safe?
Here's the truth.
Biometrics, right, fingerprint safes, some of them are far easier to hack and Jimmy open than, uh, than other forms of, of, Well, other safes, and by the way, there's some, I don't know what you call those where it's different, like a speed, like you kind of have to hit certain things at the same time.
It's not biometric, but... Oh, I know what you're talking about, though.
Anyway, it's not a combination safe, but there are all kinds of different safes out there that can be more effective than a biometric safe.
For sure.
But if you get a judge, they'll say, well, you have kids in the house?
Or do you have a biometric safe?
It doesn't mean it's the most effective.
You have a lot of these myths that are just pervasive that we unfortunately sometimes use as the foundation for law.
And people sometimes writing these laws have no idea.
In some states do.
Yeah, exactly.
Past laws like that.
Unfortunately, California has Safe Storage Act.
There's other There's other states that do as well.
And I'm not saying you shouldn't keep your firearms in your safe.
By all means, everyone's situation is different.
Everyone's children are different, etc.
But if you have a gun for home defense, you have to be able to access it.
Right. To defend your home. Yes. Right.
So, and the quicker you can do it, the better.
Somebody kicks your door in, how long do you have to access that gun, right?
So, just keep that in mind, I suppose.
Well, yeah, so I do have one of the biometric... I have several different safes, but one of them is a biometric safe.
And I found, and this is, I actually showed it, it would be considered one of the higher end biometric safes.
It works maybe 60% of the time, and here's the problem, it works almost no percent of the time if my finger is sweaty.
Which is very likely if someone is at the foot of my bed with a balaclava at 3 in the morning.
Yes.
I would imagine there'd be some perspiration.
Yeah, for sure.
Yeah.
Biometric safes are sketchy in terms of reliability at this point, maybe one day.
And I'm not sure if you've seen it, but they just recently, I mean, like this month.
Yeah.
First commercially available quote unquote smart gun.
Yeah.
We'll see how that works out.
Yeah.
I have my reservations.
You're saying it's more of a perhaps a dumb gun.
Yes.
And that's a horrible place, as horrible of a place to end as any.
So let's do it.
Yes!
We hope that this has helped.
And by the way, we make all the references, of course, publicly available.
You can go back to the catalog this week.
Thank you so much to Mr. Gunsgear Mike for coming out.
Go check out his YouTube channel, his content on Mug Club.
None of this exists without you, so do consider joining up at louderwithcreditor.com slash Mug Club where you get additional content, additional shows.
And it allows us to continue creating this kind of information, whether you can find it on YouTube or not.
So go back and watch.
I think we'll have chapters here.
Handguns 101, Long Guns 101, covering rifles and shotguns, ballistics, and then cultural and historical political myths that you might most commonly run into.
And hit the like button.
I don't really even know.
The thing is, this could be running two or three years from now, where the like button doesn't even exist.
It's entirely possible.
They took the dislike away for President Biden.
Yes, they did.
Yeah, they did.
Yeah.
The like button's next.
They replaced it with just a double-barreled shotgun aiming at the sky, and you can hit it so they can put you on a watch list.
So we'll see you in a little bit.
Stay tuned here to this channel next week.
Some specials that we'll be installing.
And then, of course, we'll be back with the regular show after this break.
Thanks again.
If you like this video, click like, consider subscribing, or comment below.
And of course, consider tuning in to the live show, Monday through Friday, 10 a.m.
▲
Export Selection