He knows. He used to live here. And make holsters for guns . . .
I don't owe you an explanation; but because we disagree so often on this forum especially about so-called appendix carry, I'll offer the following.
I've been an active member of the firearms industry in USA since 1970; and throughout the '70s, '80s, and '90s appeared at all the major and even minor industry trade shows. NSGA, SHOT, NRA, various police shows, etc. I was chief operating officer for the Bianchi Cup tournament that created professional pistol shooting; i.e., as a money-maker for shooters.
So since living here I have become like the story of the chap who went to sleep for a hundred years and woke up to a different world. But in my case 'it' changed in just_ten_years.
So the USA that I left in '99, was like this: SHOT show did not permit paramilitary exhibits of any kind and even the word 'assault' was not permitted in any signage. This led my first customer for my Nichols Innovation service to change their name from Assault Systems, to Shooting Systems.
There were no silencers available for sale to civilians. The bump stock didn't exist nor was it contemplated. And no intelligent person was ever seen, nor photographed even, carrying a pistol across the belly and muzzling the crotch. Never. None.
Now we're at 1999. Then while I'm living in Victoria Australia until 2010, where even blue guns are illegal; it all changed. So I 'woke up' in 2011 when I moved north to Queensland where they are legal, and reengaged with the shooting community via online, to get up to speed on the state of the art. Hybrid holsters had appeared, otherwise nothing had changed there (today the change is that Safariland has dumped Kydex and shifted their production to full injection molding; sensible because Bill Rogers was always a plastics-only man).
The first shock was belly carry proliferating, incorrectly called appendix carry (which actually is over at 2:00 not 12:00). It took me enduring lots of abuse before I worked out what the conflict was: terminology. Hey, take all the warning labels off and let God sort it out; if that's how shooters want to work it, good on 'em. But I took the decision to make no holsters that could even be carried at the belly. Then I took the decision to make no holsters for striker pistols without external safeties, because I'd worked out that holster makers had taken on the responsibility for making them safe as with 1911s; but that's not possible -- covering the guard or having a strap didn't add back the safety that was missing.
NOW -- during that interval I discover that you all have legalized all kinds of craziness that is well outside of the craziness of silencers and bump stocks in the gun world: the opiod crisis didn't exist in '99, nor was marijuana being sold on street corners in Vegas, nor was being a pornography performer something to put on one's Facebook page, nor were some other things legal that I'm not even allowed to mention here or be called a name.
THAT's how far my beloved USA has slid down the slippery slope. But when I was back in 2015 with my Aussie bride I still was thrilled to be there. OK, I was frankly offended by many of the displays at SHOT. My focus in gunleather has been to promote the sporting use of handguns, and to respect law enforcement's need for handguns in their work and support them.
But I look at the defensive carry subforum here and I wonder: have you all really created a world where you NEED a pistol? Whose dumb idea was open carry? Whose really dumb idea was open carry of assault rifles. Yours (not you, MM, but 'you' who were in charge of USA 1999 to 2019). You all have really made a mess of it.
Now I'm reading posts that deny there is any CAUSE of this? We can agree that assault rifles are not the cause. But there is a cause. So I look at this, like fire. What does it take to make fire: fuel, air, and a spark. We can argue about which the following are, but as with fire, take one away and there can be no fire: human, firearm, active shooter game.
We could eliminate humans. I'm not for that. It's been suggested that we get rid of young males because they're in all these shootings. I'm not for that and they're not the cause. OK, say Democrats, guns are of course used in all these shootings; easy, get rid of them. Again, not the cause. A rifle standing in its rack next to a young man and the rifle will not cause him to go kill strangers. But where did he GET the idea that killing strangers for fun is a good idea? The writings of the Columbine shooters (look at the Wikipedia entry for their dialoges) say: the game Doom, and the film Natural Born Killers.
The natural extension of that has been the Call of Duty Fantasy called out in more recent mass killings.
So: if you all (I'm doing everything I can by writing to politicians and press in USA; and so far Mr. Trump and Mr. LaPierre have listened to me) don't work out the ACTUAL cause (the left-leaning press is shouting that the video game thing is just an excuse by gunnies) you WILL lose the ability to protect your family.
I don't have it here, since the mass shooting here in '99. Now New Zealand doesn't have it since the mass shooting there. And this morning I get told by the construction site next door that their new units, and a nearby house of my neighbors, has been broken into (burgled). Don't got there, chaps, don't let your guns disappear because you haven't worked out the actual cause.
I see on forums that you all don't want government interfering in your lives. I respect that, and boy do I agree. I've been voting 'right' since Nixon. But you all let it get out of control when you let silencers and bump stocks into your world, without saying, 'hey, keep those out of my gun shows. They're a bad idea in my community'. So government is going to step in and 'fix' it for you; and you've only yourselves to blame.
