[arbhassan]

People here LOVE guns. Everyone owns multiple guns in their house. I think it's our pukhtoon culture and a sense of pride and security that comes with owning a gun.

When i was a kid my father used to clean his AK every other week and i would sit by him silently and enjoying as he broke it down into multiple pieces and then make it into one piece after cleaning it.

For me i wanted to have my own original Russian AK because having an original AK instead of one made locally is like having an iPhone 11 pro here. :)

[astatine]

Do you get original ammunition or are they made locally as well? How often do you use it? Or is it a status symbol, primarily? Is it carried along when you generally go out or only on special occasions.

I haven't ever exchanged messages with anyone who owned a gun, let alone an AK47 and the novelty raises a lot of questions!

[nucleardog]

Are you sure you haven’t?

I’m in Canada which has about 35 civilian guns per hundred people and thanks to the licensing system we know it works out to about 7.5% of the country having licenses here. A lot of the people that own guns would probably surprise you too—for instance, my 65 year old gray haired aunt that works as a nurse in a care home for old people has a cabinet at home with 6 or 8 guns in it.

And obviously the ownership rates among Americans are, uh, quite high as well. Given the heavy North American audience here you’ve almost certainly gotten into a conversation with at least a few gun owners.

Firearms ownership is a way of life or a core part of the identity of some people, but for the vast majority of owners it is not. For those people, it’s rarely something you’d find out about unless there was a reason to. I do tend to bring it up when the conversation steers anywhere towards that direction because I like to try and be an ambassador for the normal, responsible people that own firearms as a contrast to certain vocal minorities, but most people seem to prefer to just fly under the radar.

I’ve got an old (1955) Russian military surplus SKS, a Czech bolt action .22 (CZ455) and a Turkish (ATA Arms) Remington 870 12 gauge pump shotgun clone with a tube magazine and a 14 inch barrel sitting around the house. If it interests you at all, feel free to ask anything you want to know.

[mmm_grayons]

Ever had a slamfire on that SKS? I've seen a few videos showing it but am wondering if it's widespread or just an urban legend.

[vmh1928]

Many of the SKS sold were military surplus from the various source countries and were usually covered in heavy preservative grease. The grease got into ever nook and cranny (as it was supposed to,) and could prevent the firing pin from moving freely. If you didn't disassemble and clean the bolt and make sure the firing pin could move freely a slam-fire would be possible if the firing pin was stuck sticking out of the bolt face. The other way to cause a slam-fire is if the hammer catch is worn so the hammer isn't caught and held. What happens then is the hammer follows the bolt as the bolt returns to battery and if a new round was chambered the hammer, pressing on the back of the firing pin and forcing the pin to stick out from the bolt face can cause the round to fire. Either way it's bad because both problems can cause the round to fire before the bolt is completely in battery (fully forward with the lugs or locking mechanism engaged and the round fully supported by the chamber.) That can lead to the rear of the cartridge rupturing and venting burning propellant, usually into the magazine.

[mmm_grayons]

Interesting, I had heard about the cosmoline issues, but wasn't familiar with the issue with the hammer catch. I guess that is to be expected from combloc surplus. Thanks for the information.

[nucleardog]

It's definitely not widespread, but it's also not just an urban legend. It's pretty well understood how to intentionally recreate the conditions for a slamfire.

The slamfires happen when the firing pin sticks forward in the bolt due to some sort of contamination which isn't anything unique to the SKS. It's probably more commonly associated with the SKS just because so many people pick them up covered in cosmoline (preservative wax) and just fail to clean them properly. You could probably also do it by slathering oil all over the firing pin and then repeatedly operating the gun in dusty and dirty conditions without cleaning, but really at that point it's kind of on you. (E.g., no slam fires here despite filling the thing with mud: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SPL1gEqBk0s)

Take care of your tools and they'll take care of you. I've put many thousands of rounds through mine without issue, and I know a lot of people that own them because they're extremely cheap here and I've never run into anyone in meatspace that has experienced a slamfire. And even on the internet many people _warn_ about them, but relatively few claim to have ever experienced one considering how common the rifle is. That said, I still make sure mine is pointed downrange every time I chamber the first round from the magazine because it doesn't hurt to be extra cautious.

In all the rounds I've put through mine I've had exactly one failure. An old, corrosive surplus round manufactured in Czechoslovakia in the 1970s. It seems to have expanded a little more vigorously than the usual round or something and got stuck in the chamber. Still fired correctly and the extractor did its job and... ripped a chunk out of the lacquered casing trying to pull it out. Had to pound it out through the muzzle with a brass rod.

They're pretty much what you'd expect out of a soviet russian firearm. Overbuilt, rugged, reliable in hands of an untrained peasant, and somehow no two came off the line the same.

[AlgorithmicTime]

That mostly happens if you forgot to clean the cosmoline out of the firing pin channel.

[arbhassan]

You can get original ammunition as well as the ones made locally but i would recommend original ones because the local ammunition can not be trusted as they may jam your weapon.

Yes! it can be like a status symbol but you almost never carry it when you go out. And is mostly kept in your house. You can definitely carry a pistol on you though under your shirt.

[phobosanomaly]

If you ever get the chance 'The Gun' by CJ Chivers is a fascinating history of the AK47 and its spread around the world.

[smabie]

At what age do people generally get a gun? I have friends who's father bought them a gun at 11-12, though personally I think 14-15 might be more appropriate.

At what age did you get your first gun?

[ImprovedSilence]

My experience in the US, for something that's not a BB gun, I'd say 10 or 11, but that's not a hard and fast limit. It's usually a small caliber (like .22) or something. Hunting used to start at 12 way back, although these days I've heard some places allow hunting as early as 8..? The truth is it depends on the individual, and how well they can be trained. This video gives a pretty good overview of "milestones" someone should reach before owning a gun: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5fRJTyU851Y

[OJFord]

In the UK you can join the Army Cadet Force (ACF) at 12, or in an area without middle schools (most of the UK) 11 if your secondary school has a CCF (Combined).

Probably the most controlled way young people get their hands on them here, perhaps also the most common (competition/clay/game shooting clubs being the other possibility).

Cadets use a modified (no magazine, one in the chamber) .22 Lee Enfield for short range target shooting on-site (perhaps not all sites have them) and L98 (A1 was magazine fed but manually cocked, the semi-automatic A2 came in about ten years ago while I was going through) rifles of the SA80 family that's standard issue (L85) in the British Army. They also have, but use more rarely, L86 LSWs, and others not issued but may be encountered at 'summer camps' and the like, with training from regulars/TA.

It is a slightly scary thought looking back on it being older now, I'm not sure I'd fancy being an instructor: imagine being a teacher with a 'difficult' child, except you're instructing them in handling a firearm...

I enjoyed it a lot though, and would recommend it for sure.

[CinchWrench]

I've instructed kids roughly this age. My context was the American Boy Scouts (remember when that still existed?), so I'm sure it was similar to your experience in the ACF.

There are a lot of psychological techniques you pick up on before you even get to the instruction. One of them is setting a firm expectation that "you are becoming a man, this is how men behave, men are accountable for their actions." This works well for kids in a situation where they feel that they have some honor/face to maintain.

The only difficult child I had to handle was one in the scouts who was using a pocket knife in a very unsafe way. I tore up his totin' chip [1] in front of the class and the shame from that and the dressing down his scoutmaster gave him at the evening campfire straightened him up quickly. I only bring that up because it illustrates how I used that shame drive as what I view as the most important mechanism to keep everyone safe.

This was easy for me to intuit because my father introduced me to guns at a young age, .22's under his supervision around 4 or 5, a BB gun without direct supervision around the age of 8, then on to pellets and carrying my own large-caliber rifle while deer hunting around age 12. It was impressed on me that I was going to pay like hell in corporal punishment if I hit something I shouldn't have, and I've ever had a mishap with a gun (knock on wood.)

It's interesting that in these contexts where I've felt most safe there's an almost visceral understanding that removal of group standing and potentially violence are waiting on the other end of negligence on your part.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Totin%27_Chip --usually a minor infraction warrants removal of a corner of the chip. A serious infraction warrants complete destruction of the chip.

[arbhassan]

Most people get it when they become adults.

For me i bought when i got into college aka became an adult.

[madengr]

I got a shotgun for my 8th birthday, though probably started shooting at age 6. I remember the first gun I shot was an AR-15 M1 (triangular hand guard).

I bought my two kids their own .22 bolt action at 7 and 9. Then my son a .22 AR-15 at 10.

[quietthrow]

I can imagine that.

So follow up q: if people love their guns how do they use it typically? Shooting random targets In open spaces and that kind or is it more like a samurai sword. You own one and then it’s pretty much caring for it.

Also for a culture that loves guns what kind of gun violence does it see typically if any. I understand these days it’s different due to the region being torn by geopolitics and war but am trying to understand the culture outside of it.

Also do you still live in the region or have moved. If latter how frequently do you visit And how do you typically get there?

[arbhassan]

Mostly people don't use it that often. Sometimes occasionally when guests from other places come here then they love to fire into shooting targets in open spaces.

Regarding the gun-related crime here in Tribal areas i would say it's almost zero because a thief will never snatch some men's phone because he knows he maybe packing a 9mm. :)

[beamatronic]

What part of Texas did you say ?

[quietthrow]

LOL