My reason for stopping this thread was because Gary's whole line of reasoning was flawed.
Gary cites two letters written by Harry Balfour, the radio operator at Lae. Balfour was there and if his letters had been written within days or even weeks of the events he was describing, they would carry considerable weight as primary source documents. However, the letters are recollections written down many years later. His memory may or may not have been accurate. There is no way to tell unless we can find a written source that is contemporary with the event and had access to the information. For example, if Eric Chater, in his July 25, 1937 letter describing Earhart's activities in Lae, had written, "Desiring to lighten her load, Miss Earhart gave Mr. Balfour her Colt .32 caliber pistol." we could be sure that Balfour's later recollections were accurate. Dowell's July 20, 1937 report was five days closer to the event than Chater's letter, but Dowell (commander of the Lexington Group) had no access to information about what equipment Earhart had with her in Lae.
(Dowell's list of "Known Facts" is rife with inaccuracies. He has the plane's registration number as "X-16020" - the number it carried while it was still in the Experimental category before Lockheed delivered it to Earhart.)
Likewise, Putnam may have known what was aboard the plane when it left Miami but he had no way of knowing what was aboard when it left Lae a month later.
There are photos of AE holding and presumably firing a handgun. Someone at the NRA may be able to produce records showing that AE owned a handgun (although, to my knowledge, that has not been done). None of that has anything to do with proving that she had a handgun with her on the world flight.
Flawed investigative methodologies are why previous investigations of the Earhart disappearance have gone nowhere. We do no one any favors by perpetuating them on this forum.