Welcome to NRA Family Favorites, our favorite stories from around the Web, for the week of September 24, 2022!
We're starting off with a "curiously small" defensive pistol, the Trailblazer LifeCard. It's a single-action, single-shot rimfire pistol with a folding grip. That's an accurate, yet incomplete, description of what these pistols are actually like. When folded, they are just 3.375" long, 2.125" wide and 0.5" thick. You can almost hide one under a typical business card! Our friends at NRA Women have the scoop.
Falling hunter numbers have been a major concern for the past several years and many organizations (including the NRA) have endeavored to improve this situation with programs like the three R’s: Recruiting new hunters, Retaining the hunters we have, and Reactivating hunters who have stopped hunting. All of these are worthy goals and I applaud them, but how do we actually entice new hunters to try our sport, and how do we train and educate them in the many facets of hunting? One way is squirrel hunting.
"It is tempting to think of the struggle to keep—or, in too many cases, to win back—our Second Amendment freedoms as a culture war," writes America's 1st Freedom Editor in Chief Frank Miniter. "But an analysis of the numbers disintegrates that claim. Before tackling the telling statistics, it is worth noting the gun-control groups like the culture-war claim. They need to frame this as a culture war, because a cultural struggle implies that gun control, like other social movements, will slowly win over time..." Don't miss this thoughtful article about why the Second Amendment is for all Americans, regardless of culture.
Now here's an NRA Family-friendly event (even if our friends at Shooting Sports USA caught this story before we did)! The 2022 USA Shooting Sporting Clays Cup will be held at the American Shooting Centers in Houston, Texas, on November 17-19. At the event, participants will have a chance to meet and shoot with Olympic athletes. The main event starts on November 19 with the U.S. Army Marksmanship Unit providing a demonstration, plus a live auction with hunting and fishing trips up for grabs, as well as Olympic memorabilia. After the live auction, there will be a shoot-off, followed by awards for the competition. Get the details here!
Trick shooting used to be how sharpshooters dazzled the audience during the traveling Wild West Shows (think Annie Oakley and “Buffalo Bill” Cody). While that genre of entertainment has largely faded into the history books, tricks with firearms still command an audience. For instance, besides busting 25 clays, you can also impress friends both on and off the field by effortlessly catching your spent shotshell hulls as they are ejected. Remington pro shooter Julia Stallings shows you how here! 
Crowded. The lines are long, people are obnoxious and you just want to get out. You find your escape in a little hole-in-the-wall restaurant, underappreciated and underhyped, though with the best food you’ve had in some time. Just Right Carbines (JRC) is a hole-in-the-wall gun company. They produce an amazing product, though most have never heard of them – and they do it 100 percent in the USA. Serena Juchnowski has a full review over on Shooting Illustrated!
At the beginning of the American Civil War, the Confederacy had a difficult time manufacturing enough arms for its troops. Despite this, the Confederacy still found means to produce its own arms for the war effort, with one of the more common pistols produced being the Spiller & Burr revolver. It was a single-action, percussion-fired, six-shot, .36-cal. revolver manufactured by a firm formed between two wealthy Virginia businessmen, Edward N. Spiller and David J. Burr. Read more about this most unusual gun here!
