On the reviews…

So the overwhelming majority of my readers would like me to review books more than anything else, which is fair enough, since I have read a lot of books. So in order to refine that I will add a further poll here below, but I will also begin to cover a concept of “guns review” even though it is not a popular request, because the people that do want that I think have a fairly specific requirement that interests me and I think I have decent answers for.

So… poll first:

On the Gun “Reviews”

It was this comment that got me interested, as it clarified my own intent in asking too, and articulated it better than I had done (not hard to do since I had not articulated my intent at all), Tarcisius asked:

Strictly speaking then the question relates in a wider sense to guns in general and type and purpose of them, and only after can we get into specifics.

This is going to sound silly to some of you, but honestly, if you want to get a generic take on the overview of things, buy and read my pen and paper RPG called Surviving the Current Zombie Apocalypse. Yes it’s a game, yes you can use it to have fun, and yes it’s written in a humorous and somewhat over-the-top way, but there is a reason why militaries around the world actually game-out various real life scenarios. Bad role-players get it wrong and have spectacular losses (America), good role-players plan properly and kick the entire ass of the combined enemy forces (Russia).

You can get it in paper format off Amazon here, or you can buy the full colour PDF from me direct, and print it for cheaper, here. And yes there is also a starter module you can get that helps anyone new to pen and paper RPGs get the ball rolling by presenting you a ready made scenario with pre-created characters.

The point of the game is that it will get you thinking about your specific situation, which is ultimately what you need to identify before ANY gun review is even relevant to you other than by random chance.

In order of specifics, for me to provide a decent review of either:

1) A gun I own or owned or am familiar with through decent amount of use or testing, or,

2) My opinion on a particular calibre, weapon platform, etc based on my own life experiences (and not anything else)

I will need at a minimum for you to identify:

1. The legal restrictions/requirements of where you are and/or your specific circumstances. You don’t need to give me any self-identifying details, if you don’t want to, I don’t care, but if you live in say the UK, handguns are simply outlawed other than for very specific government mandated purposes and people, and shotguns or rifles are very difficult to come buy, very highly regulated and so on. The geography of pretty much the entire UK is also not exactly conducive to anyone being able to go Rambo-style and survive as some kind of desperado fugitive from the law (not that anyone is advocating anyone does this, by the way). In short, if you live in the UK and the SHTF really badly, you had best hope you are in a rural area, surrounded by like-minded people, who maybe also have the odd shotgun or two and who are willing to band together against say hordes of marauding bandits that might decide to attack a farmhouse or so.

The alternate reality, that the government armed forces decide to requisition your property/wife/life, is pretty grim, and there is not likely going to be any viable resistance to such an event, regardless of how legal/illegal/just/unjust it might be. The amount of deadly force the UK government can bring against its own citizens and the geography and digitisation of that nation are such that, as the Borg would put it, “resistance is futile”. Your best bet in such an environment is to stick to permitted weaponry like pellet guns or maybe crossbows if you are in an area that would permit you to use them for hunting purposes in order to supplement your diet in an emergency. So you see that a gun review about the merits of the colt 1911 for self-defence purposes would have zero value for a person in such a position.

If on the other hand, you’re Hillbilly Joe and your cousin Billy-Bob-Jean the third is actually the redneck that took out that F35 the US air-force “lost” with a shoulder fired .50 calibre Barrett, well… your situation in a SHTF situation would be completely different, but the review of the Colt 1911 might be just as meaningless to you, as you might be dealing with raiders that come at you from over a click away with heir own .50 cals.

So that explains the why I would need the legal constraints.

2. Geographical constraints. If you life in flatland desert where you can see someone approaching from 10km away, it makes a difference when compared to a guy living in the Amazonian underbrush with visibility limited to a few metres. So your current or at least intended geographical situation needs to be understood. Again, I don’t care to know your position on Earth, but a simple descriptor of the situation is helpful. Is it mostly flat-land with low-rolling hills, like most of the UK, mountain terrain with deep snow-drifts and inaccessible areas, mediterranean forest, sparse beach on the ocean-front on a smallish island nation, or what?

At a minimum then those two things need to be provided for me to give a bespoke reply to anyone interested in it.

If you also have a specific weapon you are either thinking of or want my take on in general, then that alone can suffice. In this case my assumption will be that you already have identified the other two aspects and just want my opinion on the specific weapon you are interested in.

All that said, keep in mind the old adage that opinions are like assholes: Everyone has one, and most times they are full of shit.

My opinions are valid and valuable in general terms and I am not prone to exaggerating or hyping my “theoretical” knowledge above my actual practical knowledge, but most of all my opinions re valuable to me first and foremost because of my personal experience in life with various weapons and concepts. My history with guns is fairly well-known and I did work for a number of years in armed close protection, and grew up in a very experienced family of hunters and have hunted since I was a child. I worked various undercover jobs, alongside police, military and private people, and have trained both armed and unarmed police in close quarter combat as well as private clients. I have worked for people that are known world-wide in this respect and have no need to breach my NDAs and so on to “prove” how cool or tough or clever I am. I’m just saying that my opinions are based on a lot of experience that most normal people do not have and as such are probably worthwhile. But if you’re some special ops guy with a bunch of kills to your name and you think my preferred weapons etc suck, then by all means ignore my advice and follow your own. People are different and have different skills, different mentalities and different body sizes. What works for me might be awful for a guy that is 5’6″ and 140lbs.

Now that I got all those corollaries out of the way, feel free to post a comment or ping me an email on any guns you want a review on. I will basically only do gun reviews on specific guns or concepts related to them when asked, so you can make it as personal to you as you want.

That’s all for now.

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