Tag: guns

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#BookReview: Beyond Control by Jacob Sullum

Strong Refutation of Gun and Drug Laws. At least in American politics, the political right loves to demand total freedom re: guns (and has a particularly strong textual Constitutional case for exactly that) yet also demand exceedingly harsh punishments for even minor issues wherein a person is using, possessing, or even being anywhere near some substance the government has decided it doesn’t like. In American politics, the political left is the opposite – demanding near total freedom re: substances (despite, to be clear, a clear Constitutional case protecting access there) while demanding ever more draconian punishments for any issue they don’t like involving certain tools they don’t like.

In this text, reasonably well researched with a bibliography clocking in at around 23% of the overall text, Reason Magazine editor Jacob Sullum finally writes a book about the two issues he has spent a career writing for the magazine about: gun control and drug control, and how both have remarkably similar histories and even current arguments.

Sullum shows how both ultimately come from racist and classist origins and actively have racist and classist causes and effects even in today’s society. He quotes the oft-cited Michelle Alexander’s New Jim Crow, while pointing to some of its shortcomings. He cites others across the ideological spectrum, showing the strengths and weaknesses of several different ideas through the course of both early American history up through history as recent as 2024.

Ultimately, this is not even that arguably the strongest take down of both regulatory schemes I’ve yet encountered in book form – and the fact that Sullum did it with *two* topics (and shows how closely they are linked, despite “both” American Political Parties handling each very differently) at once shows just how much of a master logician he is. I mean, I consider myself reasonably well versed in various forms of debate, but here Sullum may as well be Neo upon discovering that he really is The One, effortlessly slicing through counter arguments as if they were no more substantive than the hot air coming out both sides of Joe Biden’s mouth. (And yes, yet again another libertarian-based book, and another book were former US Senator and now former President Joe Biden is cited – and showing how wrong he was – seemingly more often than any other US President, including the current one as I write this review just over a month before publication of this book. The other similar book being Radley Balko’s excellent 2013 book Rise Of The Warrior Cop.)

If you’re at all interested in gun control or drug legalization in the US, from any position and any angle… you need to read this book. Even if just for opposition research. Because even if I didn’t agree with Sullum’s positions (and I don’t… maybe 5% of the time here 😉 ) this truly is a very solidly reasoned and examined argument against government regulation of either object, at least as regulations of either currently stand or are largely even thought of at all, and even if you are 100% opposed to Sullum’s stances here, you’ll do yourself a favor by examining his arguments if only to try to find a way to counter them.

Truly well done, truly well organized narratively, and absolutely…

Very much recommended.

This review of Beyond Control by Jacob Sullum was originally written on July 31, 2025.

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#BlogTour: A Family Affair by Robyn Carr

For this blog tour, we’re looking at an otherwise strong family drama marred by COVID references and bigotry. For this blog tour, we’re looking at A Family Affair by Robyn Carr.

Bigotry And COVID Mar Otherwise Strong Family Drama. On its whole, this is a mostly solid family drama about a mom and two of her three children dealing with a tragedy and trying to move on with their lives in the wake of it.

However, it does have significant problems, problems I’ve yet to see any of the other 44 Goodreads reviews in existence at the time of this writing address.

The first is the near-constant references to the insanities of 2020-2022, mostly as a way to ground the story in a sense of time and place. But here’s the thing: I DO NOT WANT TO READ ABOUT COVID. PERIOD. And thus a star was deducted for this. Maybe you, the reader of my review, are less adamant about this or maybe you even appreciate such references. Good for you, you’ll enjoy those parts of this text. But for those who feel as I do on the matter, know that it happens here.

The second major issue is the portrayal and handling of the Autistic third child. To say that this is a highly bigoted view along the lines constantly spewed by the Autistic hate group Autism Speaks is still being a bit too polite, to this Autistic’s mind. This character is every tired and worn out Autistic stereotype rolled into one, and while the family claims to love her, they also drug her into oblivion so that Carr can write her out of the back half of the book. Indeed, if an author treated pretty well any demographic other than the neurodiverse/ Autistics like this in a book, that author would likely go viral for social media cancelling them – and yet something tells me most will be silent about or even praise Carr’s reprehensible treatment of this character. That it publishes just days after World Autism Acceptance Day and during World Autism Acceptance Month is a slap in the face to Autistics from the publisher, but perhaps they were not aware of just how offensive this characterization truly is and were not aware of April being so designated.

The third issue, a throwaway line that further reveals Carr’s political leanings, is a reference to a school shooting where the shooter got “automatic weapons” from his dad’s garage. In California. In the 2000s. BULLCRAP! For one, while *some* automatic weapons *are* legal, the manner in which they are legal is INCREDIBLY expensive to obtain and subjects one to an entire alphabet soup of agencies – both Federal and State, particularly in California – knowing exactly where and how you store such weapons. Further, in the *extremely* rare case of Columbine/ Parkland style attacks as is described in this part of the text, such truly automatic weapons are virtually *never* used. But someone who only follows certain paranoid propagandists on this matter would have no clue about these facts, and Carr reveals herself to be just such a person in this instance. However, this did *not* result in a third star deduction as this was more of a one-off throwaway backstory line and not a pervasive element within the book as the first two issues were.

Ultimately, this is one of those books where your mileage may vary quite a bit. If you don’t mind references to COVID in your fiction and if you agree with Carr’s views on Autism and guns, you likely will enjoy this book quite a bit. And to be clear, other than these issues – which were *not* on every page – the story itself really is quite good. But if you feel as I do on these issues… still read the book. It really is that well written, mostly. Just know there is going to be some infuriating moments. Recommended.

After the jump, an excerpt from the book followed by the “publisher details” – book description, author bio, and social and buy links.
Continue reading “#BlogTour: A Family Affair by Robyn Carr”

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#BookReview: A Thin Disguise by Catherine Bybee

Solid, But With A Glaring Error Early. As a romance between an amnesiac assassin and an undercover FBI agent, this story works great. As a continuation of this new Richter series (which is apparently a spinoff from the First Wives series, though I did not know that until perusing the reviews on Goodreads for this book), this works quite well. As a forced-proximity romance, this is actually fairly inventive, as the leading couple is not alone in the house… *and* there are cameras and sensors (almost) everywhere to boot!

But there is one *blinding* in its glaringness issue that needs to be mentioned, even though it isn’t objectively strong enough to remove a star over (though I know some who would likely 1* the book on this issue alone). And that issue is the very moment the assassin becomes an amnesiac. When she is shot on a crowded Las Vegas street in a drive by shooting with a “silenced” weapon. That nobody hears.

Why is this so glaring?

Because I know from both handling firearms and speaking/ listening to others who do that suppressors – they aren’t actually called “silencers”, for one – don’t actually silence a weapon, unlike what happens so often in Hollywood. Depending on several factors such as barrel length of the gun (usually shorter, in drive by situations), temperature, humidity, etc – all of which would be known and factored by professional hitmen/ security / assassin types – a suppressor *at best* takes a gun shot from sounding like you’re standing beside the speakers at a rock concert to sounding like your is using a chainsaw to cut down a tree on the other side of the fence you are standing beside.

In other words, for the shot not to be heard by *everyone* nearby – inside or outside – is so implausible that it brings the reader out of the story if they know the realities of these devices *at all*.

And since Bybee herself noted during the discussion of her Canyon Creek series that she knows her way around a shotgun, it is implausible that the author is not aware of these issues directly. Which makes them being written this way even worse. Though again, because it was a singular point in the book and not a recurring problem, it isn’t a star-deduction level error.

Ultimately, this is a quite solid book for what it actually is, and I’m still very much looking forward to seeing where this series goes from here. (And I’ll need to go back and read the book this series spins off from, since I bought it years ago and have yet to read it. :D) Very much recommended.

This review of A Thin Disguise by Catherine Bybee was originally written on May 27, 2021.

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#BookReview: The Guns Of John Moses Browning by Nathan Gorenstein

Remarkable Biography Of One Of The Most Influential Men Of The 20th Century. In this, the first biography of John Moses Browning ever written by anyone other than a descendant (and only the second ever written, period), Gorenstein does a truly remarkable job of showing the life, times, and inventions of a man who could arguably be said to be more actually influential on the 20th century than even Thomas Edison or Henry Ford. Yes, Edison revolutionized how we are able to see and gave us the truly 24/7 world, and Ford revolutionized both transportation and manufacturing more generally, but Browning revolutionized how we *kill things* – animal or human – and that alone has driven many of the most important issues of the 20th century. It was Browning’s early rifles that may not have won the West – but certainly made it even easier to live there. It was Browning’s (then-Colt) 1911 that is *to this day* one of the most popular types of pistol in the world, over a century after Browning won the competition for the US Army’s new service pistol (a contract it would keep for over 70 years and through both World Wars, the Korean Conflict, and the Vietnam War). Indeed, that very model – the Colt 1911 – played a legendary part of the lore of one Lieutenant George S Patton and the first motorized military raid in the 1916-17 Punitive Expedition. In WWII, many infantry units – very likely including both of my grandfathers’ own units – carried up to four different Browning guns into battle, between his 1911, his Browning Automatic Rifle (BAR), and his “Ma Deuce” Browing M2 .50 caliber machine gun.

And Gorenstein does a phenomenal job of showing the development and importance of each, including Browning designing the gas-piston system of modern automatic and semi-automatic rifles *in a single day*. Gorenstein shows how Browning, of truly humble beginnings, designed his first gun from scraps laying around his dad’s engineering and repair shop – just to hunt small game to help feed the family. Gorenstein shows how these humble beginnings played such a role in Browning not even really beginning to invent until at or beyond the age when others in more academic professions say genius decays – and how this “lost decade” played such a role in Browning’s later drive and inventiveness.

It doesn’t matter what you think of how Browning’s designs and their derivatives over the last 100+ years have been used. You know about Edison, or can. You know about Ford, or can. You deserve to educate yourself about this genius as well, if only to learn the lessons of his genius. And this book is the very first time you really can. Very much recommended.

And here are (most of) the guns in question, just to show how truly prolific this amazing man was.

This review of The Guns Of John Moses Browning by Nathan Gorenstein was originally written on March 27, 2021.

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#BookReview: The Enemy of My Enemy by Richard Bard

Excellent Continuation. This book continues the storyline and pacing from the previous book and raises the stakes quite a bit in the process. If you enjoyed the first book, you’ll enjoy this one, but as this is the second book in the series, you really do need to start from the beginning.

I wound up dinging this one a star because of the author’s continued miscommunication about guns. The vast majority of which do not have “clips”, they have “magazines”. And there are *few* fully automatic pistols, virtually none of which even military contractors would be allowed to have on the streets of the United States. So while the author continually refers to characters having “automatics”, they really should be “semi-automatics” or even just “pistols” or “sidearms”.

All that said, this series is a solid thriller with elements of scifi – if you like either genre, you may well like this series and I absolutely recommend checking it out.

This review of The Enemy of My Enemy by Richard Bard was originally published on October 25, 2018.