Below is an excerpt from an article that should be considered required reading for both prospective and veteran gun buyers. No manufacturer is without flaw. They all have issues from time to time and even some of the big names manage to produce crap guns.

Trust No One: an insider’s perspective

by Todd Louis Green, pistol-training.com

Trying to decide which pistol to buy? If so, you’re probably looking for one that is guaranteed to be durable and reliable. Well, I’ve got bad news for you. There is no such gun. The day when you could point to a particular brand or model and be certain it would work 100% out of the box and last forever is gone.

After ten years in the firearms industry, including jobs at two major prestigious gun manufacturers, I have come to a very simple conclusion: no one makes a gun that you can be certain will work. Bias and personal preferences aside, most of the major manufacturers are more or less equal nowadays in quality. It wasn’t always that way, but as price became an increasingly important factor in buying decisions of both individuals and government entities, everything changed.

As major gun companies began losing marketshare to Glock, surveys of customers made it very clear that price was one of the driving factors. So what could gun companies do? They had to start competing on price.

The result is, throughout the industry, reduced attention to quality. Both companies I worked for, when I started, had a strict policy of test-firing every single pistol that left the factory floor. Each gun was subjected to two or three full magazines of shooting before it was given the stamp of approval. By the time I left each job, both companies had stopped test-firing pistols destined for the commercial (non-law enforcement, non-military) markets … and in some cases, they stopped testing the LE guns, as well. Why? Test-firing costs a lot of money. You need a range, specially trained and equipped employees, and of course, ammo … lots of ammo. Test-firing a pistol easily adds $25 or more to the price you pay at the gun shop.

Read more @: pistol-training.com » Trust No One: an insider’s perspective

TURIN, Italy (Reuters) – People who manufacture weapons or invest in weapons industries are hypocrites if they call themselves Christian, Pope Francis said on Sunday.

Francis issued his toughest condemnation to date of the weapons industry at a rally of thousands of young people at the end of the first day of his trip to the Italian city of Turin.

“If you trust only men you have lost,” he told the young people in a long, rambling talk about war, trust and politics after putting aside his prepared address.

“It makes me think of … people, managers, businessmen who call themselves Christian and they manufacture weapons. That leads to a bit a distrust, doesn’t it?” he said to applause.

Source: Pope says weapons manufacturers can’t call themselves Christian – Yahoo News Canada

At the risk of drawing God’s ire, it seems to me the Pope is has just gone off the reservation in the name of populists sentiment. In fact, while calling others hypocrites, it seems he needs to look to his own Church. Specifically, if he’s going to walk the walk, he needs to disband the Swiss Guard and ask that Italy stop providing security of any kind to the Vatican. By his stated logic, the Catholic Church is apparently a bunch of hypocrites for having made a substantial investment in small arms to defend the papacy.

-GM