Tuesday, November 20, 2012

The bad old days

  of firearms journalism made a brief return at Cheaper Than Dirt with the "Babineaux Method" article.  This moronic article purports to enlighten us as to how the "Babineaux Method" of reholstering with your finger inside the trigger guard, behind the trigger is really the safest way of reholstering those new fangled, striker fired Tupperware polymer pistols.  

  This article has been debunked and vilified (rightly so) across the internets.  CTD pulled it from their site after three days.  So, I don't want to nor need to rehash the very obvious arguments against this trash.

  However, it reminded me of the bad old days before the free flow of information afforded to us by the internet and online gun forums.  Gun journalism sucked and for a long time, too.  Folks just couldn't fire up Google and try to find out who the article is referring to when it states (pause for laughter)

"today’s professionals are beginning to utilize a method that has become known as the Babineaux Method."

 By the way, no one has figured out which professionals are doing so nor even who Babineaux is except as the article states:

“Babineaux is a Marine who now works in a major metropolitan law-enforcement agency. He’s been working in a high-risk environment for almost a decade. That environment requires undercover tactics, including deception and deep concealment of a firearm. Because of the sensitive nature of his work, we can’t be more specific about his credentials.”

  See what he did there?  The military knows all excuse coupled with "we could tell you but we'd have to kill you."  The double whammy.  OPSEC.  OPSEC.  OPSEC!  

  So right now, we have a clearly dangerous technique being demonstrated AIWB (Appendix Inside Waist Band) with a clip on, stretchy, crap holster that no on in their right mind would use for anything let alone AIWB.  AIWB works well with holsters that are designed for it.  Holster that retain the firearm, don't stretch, secure solidly to the belt, and position the firearm more vertically instead of letting it flop around.

  The tally:

  • unsafe technique
  • "we can't tell you what his credentials are.  SECRET.
  • someone who clearly does not carry AIWB "demonstrating" the technique

  I would have known this was tripe a few years ago.   I wouldn't have been able to do anything about it and I might have heard through the grapevine about someone thinking it's OK to insert your finger into the trigger guard as you reholster into a soft holster that's not fit for training nor carry.  However, I wouldn't have been able to quickly ascertain "Babineaux the secret squirrel police officer" either doesn't exist or is (probably unless all of this is just really, really bad fiction) a pen name.  I also wouldn't have been able to read or view the author's glowing endorsements of concealed carry pants and just about everything he's given a chance at reviewing.

  And that's when a memory was jogged.  From the bad old days of gun journalism.  An article was written, purporting to be on the need of having rifles with a factory guaranteed level of accuracy.  The author tested only Sako rifles.  The author wore two different Sako hats in the pictures.  The author capped the article with details on his Sako sponsored pronghorn hunt and how his (free rifle too?) Sako performed so well.  That's when I stopped buying gun magazines.  The gun forums are rife with drama, paranoia, and bias but they're nowhere near as bad as the gun magazines.  Print is dying but accountability for the words you write and claim as facts is at an all time high.  Cheaper Than Dirt just realized that, not that I would ever forgive them for price gouging a fifty round box of .45ACP ball all the way up to $60 during the height of the Barackolypse v 1.0 Gun Buying Panic.  It's their right as capitalist to price gouge and publish nonsense.  It's our right to hold them and anyone else accountable for dangerous tripe passed off as an article. 

<admin note:  There are several very good gun writers out there still.  Rob Sloyer and Ed Lawrence come to mind.>



 

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