Eric rather famously relied on Larry Corriea to help him with more esoteric and detailed aspects of writing about firearms. If you haven’t read Larry’s books, you really should. You can even download the first book in his massively popular (for good reason!) Monster Hunter International series for free from Baen. Fair warning: once you start, you won’t be able to stop! Getting back to 1632, firearms are baked into the universe and have been since the start. Because he lived in WV, Eric understood the importance and centrality of firearms to life in the small communities Grantville is modeled on. – Bethanne Kim (Publisher, Eric Flint’s 1632 & Beyond magazine) Baen’s Bar 20 March 2015 09:54 I’m not going to get too far into this discussion because if I did it would turn into a long-running political wrangle which I don’t have time for even if I had the inclination (which… I might, depending on how pissed I got). But I will make a few points: First, on guns. People tend to obsess far too much on this subject, in real life as much as in fiction. That’s true no matter where they are in the political spectrum. Conservatives nowadays ascribe mystical and even religious significance to gun ownership. And if you think I’m exaggerating, consider the title of Mike Huckabee’s recent book: GOD, GUNS, GRITS AND GRAVY. I grew up in hunting county in the California mountains and I owned guns like every other male over the age of 10, and a fair number of girls. But I owned guns for practical reasons: a rifle to hunt deer and a shotgun to hunt birds. The only people I knew who owned handguns fell into two categories: men like my father, who had fought in World War II and kept their .45 service pistol, more as a memento than anything else; and bow hunters who might encounter a bear in…