Ruger On Marlin Assets Purchase

Ruger is cautious in their public statements. I think that is why they waited until today to make an announcement of their winning bid for the Marlin firearms assets of Remington Outdoor Company. The bid was only approved by the US Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District of Alabama yesterday.

Ruger will be paying $30 million from cash on hand for these assets and expects to close on the purchase this coming month. When Cerberus Capital Management bought Marlin in January 2008, the terms of the deal were not released. However, I think it would be a good assumption that Cerberus paid a lot more than $30 million. In that deal, Cerberus not only got Marlin, but also H&R, New England Firearms, and L.C. Smith.

I think Marlin fans and lovers of lever guns will rejoice given the comments of Ruger CEO Chris Killoy below:

“The value of Marlin and its 150-year legacy was too great of an opportunity for us to pass up,” said Ruger President and CEO Chris Killoy. “The brand aligns perfectly with ours and the Marlin product portfolio will help us widen our already diverse product offerings.”

The transaction is exclusively for the Marlin Firearms assets. Remington firearms, ammunition, other Remington Outdoor brands, and all facilities and real estate are excluded from the Ruger purchase. Once the purchase is completed, the Company will begin the process of relocating the Marlin Firearms assets to existing Ruger manufacturing facilities.

“The important thing for consumers, retailers and distributors to know at this point in time,” continued Killoy, “is that the Marlin brand and its great products will live on. Long Live the Lever Gun.”

As Michael Bane said on his podcast today, Ruger knows how to make firearms and this is good for Marlin.

Vista Outdoor On Bid For Remington Ammo Business

In my email this morning before 8am was a notice that Vista Outdoor had a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. It turns out it was their press release on their successful bid for the ammunition business of Remington.

Here is what they are saying, in part, about their winning bid for Remington’s ammunition business:

“Remington ammunition and accessories have a storied role in America’s sporting heritage, with a legacy dating back to 1816,” said Chris Metz, Vista Outdoor Chief Executive Officer.  “We are excited and honored to add the iconic Remington brand and green box to Vista Outdoor’s portfolio of ammunition brands, and Remington accessories to our portfolio of Hunting and Shooting Accessories.  The Remington brand is beloved by hunting and shooting sports enthusiasts everywhere and we look forward to restoring it to greatness by leveraging Vista Outdoor’s scale, manufacturing infrastructure, distribution channels and Centers of Excellence.

“We see a clear path to value creation.  With our deep expertise and resources, we can transform Remington’s ammunition and accessories businesses to create a more efficient, profitable and sustainable operation.  At the same time, by rescuing the Remington ammunition businesses from bankruptcy, we will protect hundreds of jobs, support wildlife and habitat conservation and ensure that hunting and shooting sports enthusiasts can continue to purchase their favorite ammunition and accessories. We look at this acquisition as a means of better serving millions of consumers with the products they love from one of the country’s original and best-known brands, while furthering Vista Outdoor’s mission of being a powerhouse of passionate outdoor sports and recreation brands,” Metz added.

The Vista Outdoor bid was $81.4 million. For that, they will get the Lonoke, Arkansas manufacturing plant plus “intellectual property, including the Remington brand and trademarks.” They will be paying for it with cash on hand plus their credit line. The deal will close early in the 3rd Quarter of 2021.

They noted that Remington had $200 million in ammunition sales for 2019.

Of course, this is all dependent upon the approval of the US Bankruptcy Court for Northern Alabama in their hearings on Tuesday, September 29th.

Remington Outdoor Company Bankruptcy Update

What Cerberus put together to eventually form Remington Outdoor Company aka Freedom Group, the US Bankruptcy Court for Northern Alabama is taking apart. A court filing today has the results of the auction for the various components of the company. It was first reported by Dan Zimmerman at TTAG.

Earlier in September, I reported that JJE Capital was the stalking horse bidder for Remington’s ammunition business. That was to set the floor. The final bids were released today. These will be subject to approval of the court in a hearing to be held on Tuesday, September 29th.

From the Notice filed with the Bankruptcy Court today:

Vista Outdoor, Inc. as the Successful Bidder pursuant to the terms of the Asset Purchase Agreement attached hereto as Exhibit A with respect to the Lonoke Ammunitions Business and certain IP assets; and SIG Sauer, Inc. as the Backup Bidder thereto pursuant to the terms of the Asset Purchase Agreement attached hereto as Exhibit B with respect to the Lonoke Ammunitions Business;
Roundhill Group, LLC as the Successful Bidder pursuant to the terms of the Asset Purchase Agreement attached hereto as Exhibit C with respect to the non-Marlin Firearms Business; and Huntsman Holdings, LLC and Century Arms, Inc. as the Backup Bidders thereto pursuant to the terms of the Asset Purchase Agreement attached hereto as Exhibit D with respect to certain Firearms Business IP assets and Exhibit E with respect to certain non-Marlin Firearms Business inventory, respectively;
Sierra Bullets, L.L.C. as the Successful Bidder pursuant to the terms of the Asset Purchase Agreement attached hereto as Exhibit F with respect to the Barnes Ammunitions Business; and Barnes Acquisition LLC as the Backup Bidder thereto pursuant to the terms of the Asset Purchase Agreement attached hereto as Exhibit G with respect to the Barnes Ammunitions Business;
Sturm, Ruger & Company, Inc. as the Successful Bidder pursuant to the terms of the Asset Purchase Agreement attached hereto as Exhibit H with respect to the Marlin Firearms Business; and Long Range Acquisition LLC as the Backup Bidder thereto pursuant to the terms of the Asset Purchase Agreement attached hereto as Exhibit I with respect to the Marlin Firearms Business;
JJE Capital Holdings, LLC as the Successful Bidder with respect to the DPMS, H&R, Stormlake, AAC, and Parker brands;
Franklin Armory Holdings, Inc., or its designated assignee, as the Successful Bidder with respect to the Bushmaster brand and certain related assets; and
Sportsman’s Warehouse, Inc. as the Successful Bidder with respect to the Tapco brand.

If these bids are approved, Vista Outdoor will become an even larger player in the civilian ammunition market with the addition of Remington’s ammunition factory in Arkansas.

The other big story is that Ruger will be adding the Marlin lever action lineup of rifles to its product line. It is unknown if they will keep the old name or market them under the Ruger name.

JJE Capital is the owner of Palmetto State Armory among other companies. DPMS will be a good fit for them as will H&R in the budget category. I’m not sure of their intention for Parker which makes the reproduction Parker shotguns nor what they plan to do with suppressor maker AAC or barrel maker Stormlake.

Franklin Armory getting Bushmaster will be a good fit for them. Likewise, Sierra Bullets adding Barnes Bullets to their lineup makes sense.

Roundhill Group, LLC is a property management group out of Virginia according to a story out of New York. I’m not sure if that is the correct Roundhill as there are a number of companies by that name with various spellings. Nonetheless, they will be getting the non-Marlin firearms business which would include Remington itself and presumably Dakota Arms. The story indicates a bit of unease in Ilion, NY where the Remington factory is the largest employer in Herkimer County. The backup bidder for this part of the assets includes Century Arms. I would hate to see what they would do with Remington.

Finally, Sportsman’s Warehouse is getting Tapco. I presume they intend for this to be used to provide accessories to be sold in their chain of stores.

The Wall Street Journal does bring up an interesting point in their report on the breakup of Remington into pieces. What happens now with the Connecticut lawsuit?

The Covid-19 pandemic and civil unrest have Americans stocking up on guns and ammunition, but Remington said it was short of funds, despite having erased hundreds of millions of dollars in debt in a 2018 bankruptcy.

The company is facing a lawsuit over its marketing of the Bushmaster rifle, which was used in the December 2012 killing of 20 children and six adult school staffers at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn.

The 2020 bankruptcy halted a lawsuit brought by the families of some of the Sandy Hook victims, which had been preserved in the first pass through chapter 11.

Remington hasn’t said what its drive to throw its assets on the bankruptcy auction block would mean for the Sandy Hook lawsuit or for company retirees who crowded into a session with bankruptcy administrators, asking what would become of their benefits.

Trump’s Short, Short SCOTUS List

Back when President Trump was planning to fill the seat of Justice Anthony Kennedy, I published short bios of all the people on his short list. He has since added to that list and it becomes important again as he plans to replace the late Justice Ginsburg with another woman.

I had planned to do a post on the five women that were on the “short, short” list. However, news broke this evening that the pick will be Judge Amy Coney Barrett.

Amy Coney Barrett

Personal:
48 y.o., married to Jesse Barrett, an AUSA for Northern Indiana, 7 children. Roman Catholic. 

Current Position:Judge, 7th Circuit Court of Appeals, appointed by Pres. Donald Trump, confirmed Oct. 31, 2017 

Education:
Rhodes College, BA, 1994
Univ. of Notre Dame Law School, JD summa cum laude, law review, 1997 

Clerkships:
Judge Laurence Silberman, US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit, 1997-1998
Justice Antonin Scalia, Supreme Court of the United States, 1998-1999 

Previous Positions:Associate, Miller, Cassidy, Larroca & Lewin, Washington, DC., 1999-2001
Adjunct Prof., George Washington University Law School, 2001-2002
John M. Olin Fellow in Law, 2001-2002
Prof. of Law, University of Notre Dame Law School, 2002-2017
Visiting Prof. of Law, University of Virgina Law School, 2007

Scholarship:
Congressional Insiders and Outsiders, U.Chi. L. Rev. (forthcoming 2017).
Originalism and Stare Decisis, 92 Notre Dame L. Rev. 1921 (2017).
Congressional Originalism, 19 U. Penn. J. of Const. L. 1 (2017) (with John Copeland Nagle)
Countering the Majoritarian Difficulty, 31 Const. Comm. 61 (2017).
Statutory Interpretation in The Encyclopedia of American Governance (2016).
Federal Court Jurisdiction in The Encyclopedia of American Governance (2016).
Substantive Canons and Faithful Agency, 90 B.U. L. REV. 109 (2010).
Federal Jurisdiction in Encyclopedia of the Supreme Court of the United States.
Introduction: Stare Decisis and Nonjudicial Actors, 83 Notre Dame Law Review 1147 (2008).
Procedural Common Law, 94 Virginia L. Rev. 813-88 (2008).
The Supervisory Power of the Supreme Court, 103 Colum. L. Rev. 324 (2006).
Statutory Stare Decisis in the Courts of Appeals, 73 Geo. Wash. L. Rev. 317 (2005).
Stare Decisis and Due Process, 74 U. Colo. L. Rev. 1011 (2003).
Catholic Judges in Capital Cases, 81 Marquette L.Rev. 303 (1998) (with John H. Garvey) 

Judicial Opinions: In the short time Judge Barrett has been on the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals (written in 2018), she has authored eight majority opinions and one dissent. None of these had to do with issues surrounding either the First or Second Amendments. 

Opposition:Judge Barrett, a practicing Roman Catholic and mother of seven, is loved by evangelicals and hated by the Left. The former hopes she’ll vote to overturn Roe v. Wade and the latter expect her to do that and thus find her objectionable. According to the left-wing Alliance for Justice, she decried Roe due to the Supreme Court “creat[ed] through judicial fiat a framework of abortion on
demand.” “

Some updates from my original post on Judge Barrett in 2018. Since she has been on the 7th Circuit, she actually had participated in a Second Amendment case. The case was Kanter v. Barr and Judge Barrett dissented.

From the SCOTUS Blog:

In a story in the National Review in August 2020, conservative legal activist Carrie Severino described Barrett as a “champion of originalism” during her short tenure so far on the 7th Circuit. In the 2019 case Kanter v. Barr, the court of appeals upheld the mail fraud conviction of the owner of an orthopedic footwear company. He argued that federal and state laws that prohibit people convicted of felonies from having guns violate his Second Amendment right to bear arms. The majority rejected that argument. It explained that the government had shown that the laws are related to the government’s important goal of keeping guns away from people convicted of serious crimes.

Barrett dissented. At the time of the country’s founding, she said, legislatures took away the gun rights of people who were believed to be dangerous. But the laws at the heart of Kanter’s case are too broad, she argued, because they ban people like Kanter from having a gun without any evidence that they pose a risk. Barrett stressed that the Second Amendment “confers an individual right, intimately connected with the natural right of self-defense and not limited to civic participation.”

From Damon Root at Reason.com about Barrett’s dissent in this case:

The categorical ban on gun possession by people with felony records is therefore “wildly overinclusive,” Barrett noted, quoting UCLA law professor Adam Winkler. “It includes everything from Kanter’s offense, mail fraud, to selling pigs without a license in Massachusetts, redeeming large quantities of out-of-state bottle deposits in Michigan, and countless other state and federal offenses,” she wrote. The ban is also underinclusive, she added, since people may reasonably be deemed dangerous even when they have not been convicted of a felony—for example, when they commit certain violent misdemeanors (another disqualification under federal law).

Given the poor fit between the ban’s scope and its ostensible purpose, Barrett said, it is not “substantially related to an important government interest”—the test under the “intermediate scrutiny” that the majority said it was applying in this case. “Neither Wisconsin nor the United States has introduced data sufficient to show that disarming all nonviolent felons substantially advances its interest in keeping the public safe,” she wrote. “Nor have they otherwise demonstrated that Kanter himself shows a proclivity for violence. Absent evidence that he either belongs to a dangerous category or bears individual markers of risk, permanently disqualifying Kanter from possessing a gun violates the Second Amendment.”

Barrett closed with a warning that will alarm gun control advocates but reassure people dismayed by the failure of federal courts to follow up on Heller and the Supreme Court’s 2010 decision in McDonald v. City of Chicago (which made it clear that the Second Amendment applies to state and local governments) by taking the right to arms as seriously as other constitutionally protected rights. “While both Wisconsin and the United States have an unquestionably strong interest in protecting the public from gun violence, they have failed to show, by either logic or data, that disarming Kanter substantially advances that interest,” she wrote. “On this record, holding that the ban is constitutional as applied to Kanter does not ‘put[] the government through its paces,’ but instead treats the Second Amendment as a ‘second-class right, subject to an entirely different body of rules than the other Bill of Rights guarantees.'”

All I can say here is that if Judge Barrett had been Justice Barrett at the beginning of the year, we would not have seen the Supreme Court deny certiorari in the multitude of Second Amendment cases before it. Chief Justice John Roberts and his potential negative vote would have been mooted.

Groups, both liberal and conservative, have quickly sent out releases both anti-Barrett and pro-Barrett.

From Aimee Allison of “She The People” which is a San Francisco-based “national network connecting women of color to transform our democracy.”:

“Today’s news is devastating. Judge Amy Coney Barrett in no way fills the immense void Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg left on our highest court. She is favored among Trump-loyal conservatives, and her judicial record makes it clear she would be solidly opposed to abortion rights and inclined, even eager, to reverse Roe v. Wade, and the Affordable Care Act.

“If confirmed, right-wing judicial activist Barrett would reshape the law and society for generations to come. She is a detriment to our democracy.

Conversely, the Club for Growth is quite pleased.

Club for Growth President David McIntosh praised President Trump’s nomination of Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the U.S. Supreme Court to fill the vacancy left by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death. 
 
“In the coming years, the Supreme Court will decide many critical cases on issues that will shape America’s economy. Either the Supreme Court will let the free-market operate without excessive government interference, or it will give the administrative state power it should never have. Judge Amy Coney Barrett is an excellent selection who has shown a rock-solid commitment to originalism and the Constitution.” McIntosh said. 
 
“Yet again, President Trump has nominated an extraordinary judge to the Supreme Court. This choice will shape America’s future, as the Court considers cases relating to issues like the constant unconstitutional growth of government and whether federal agencies should have free reign to enact arbitrary rules without Congressional approval. Judge Barrett is a principled originalist, and we have every confidence that she will rule appropriately on these vital issues. We urge the U.S. Senate to move quickly to confirm Judge Barrett.” 

It is going to be a war but a war I think we will win.

One last tidbit that I gleaned this evening from a little research. Judge Barrett and former NRA-ILA Director Chris Cox are both graduates of Rhodes College. I wondered if their times there overlapped and they did. Barrett was a 1994 graduate and Cox was a 1992 graduate. If Rhodes was anything like my alma mater Guilford, they may have had some classes together and most certainly would have seen one another on campus as both are small, liberal arts colleges.

GRNC Demonstration In Raleigh Canceled Due To Fears Of Violence

Grass Roots North Carolina President Paul Valone sent out notice within the hour saying that the protest against Sheriff Baker for not doing the job for which he was elected is off. The GRNC office received tons of emails and calls from supporters saying since state law prevented them from being armed in the face of potential violence they just couldn’t be there.

The notice from Paul Valone:

Unfortunately, GRNC is cancelling the demonstration against Sheriff Gerald Baker over his refusal to comply with the law in issuing gun permits which was scheduled for September 26, and here is why.
     Our office has been receiving a regular string of emails and voice messages with variations of, “I’ve been a member and supporter of GRNC for years, but this demonstration is scheduled for a political environment in which crazies from the left are lobbing bricks and Molotov cocktails, and under North Carolina law, I’m not allowed to carry a firearm for self-protection at a demonstration.”
     To the thousands of GRNC members who have expressed those sentiments in either words or thoughts, I say: “I hear you.”
     It is a sad day when lawful citizens can’t peacefully assemble for a redress of political grievances without fear of radical Marxists attacking them for simply expressing their views, but unfortunately, that day is upon us.
GRNC will address your inability to protect yourself during a peaceful assembly in the next session of the legislation … if we win the election.
It is increasingly obvious that the only way out of this poisonous environment we face is a decisive victory in the 2020 elections – not just a victory, but an overwhelming victory.
Rigging the election
As I write this, Democrats are busy rigging the election, not just nationally, but right here in North Carolina.
Yesterday, the Democrat-dominated State Board of Elections decided to “help” all those poor voters who fail to properly complete or mail the absentee ballots Democrats insist they must use. In an election rife with voter fraud, this will be “hanging chads” times ten.
The point of all the mail-in ballot nonsense, of course, is to undermine the legitimacy of an election they expect Donald Trump and Republicans to win.
Why we must have overwhelming victory
By claiming a Trump victory “illegitimate” after a narrow win, leftists will look for any excuse to riot, burn and otherwise tear down our society in order to replace it with their “Great Socialist Utopia.”
A narrow victory will give Obama-appointed judges and “deep state” boards of elections an opportunity to manufacture enough “hanging chads” to declare victory.
And don’t forget that North Carolina is one of a handful of critical “battleground states.”
Decisive victory depends on YOU!
To win overwhelmingly, you must not only go to the polls, but also:

  • Check your voter registration to ensure it is updated and valid;

  • If you using an absentee ballot, check your ballot carefully and mail it early (rest assured you won’t get the same “help” Democrats will);
  • Distribute GRNC “Remember in November” voter guides to like-minded friends, family, acquaintances, and co-workers;

  • Bring like-minded voters to the polls; and finally

  • Help GRNC elect pro-gun candidates by contributing to the GRNC Political Victory Fund.

     As you know, GRNC is limited in using membership funds to impact elections. Accordingly, we created our federal PAC, GRNC-PVF, to elect candidates who will support your freedom.
Please contribute by going to: www.grnc.org/pvf
With your help, we will decisively win the 2020 elections, and by so doing defeat the radical left and  end the poisonous political environment they have created.  

Armatissimi e liberissimi,

 
F. Paul Valone
President, Grass Roots North Carolina
Executive Director, Rights Watch International

Tell Sheriff Baker To Do His Job

Do you live in the Piedmont of North Carolina? Or actually anywhere in NC? Are you sick of government officials blaming the pandemic for not doing their jobs? Do you have a few hours free on Saturday late morning? Looking for something to do?

Then Grass Roots North Carolina has just made your weekend!

There will be a peaceful demonstration in Raleigh on Saturday starting at 10am outside the Wake County Department of Public Safety.

The GRNC Alert below gives more details!

Demonstration is not just about Baker
You live in a world gone mad:

Cities refuse to protect you from violent mobs, as sheriffs like Gerald Baker refuse to grant you the permits you need to protect your family.

Schools radicalize your children, turning them against their own Republic.

And now Democrats threaten “Armageddon” if Trump and the Senate do their duty by appointing a Supreme Court Justice to replace Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

It is time for you to make your voice heard!
If you are
“Mad As Hell And Not Going To Take It Anymore,” we have just the activity for you: GRNC’s demonstration against Sheriff Gerald Baker and his refusal to issue pistol purchase and concealed handgun permits to lawful citizens.

But this isn’t just about Baker: GRNC plans to demonstrate to sheriffs and legislators across the state that we are “mad as hell” about both the widespread inability of citizens to obtain guns to protect their families and the collusion of leftist media and leftist politicians to undermine our rights … permanently, if they win the election.



No excuses: You have no excuses not to attend. It will be held on a Saturday (Sept. 26).

* If you are one of the hundreds who have contacted us to express utter frustration at Baker’s (and other sheriffs’)  refusal to issue gun permits as required by law at a time when national riots make it more important than ever … BE THERE!
* or even if you aren’t, BE THERE!  
*Regardless of where you live in NC: BE THERE!

Details:
What: A peaceful demonstration against Sheriff Baker, the inability to obtain firearms for self-protection, and the present state of affairs

When: Saturday, Sept. 26, 2020 at 10:00 AM to 1:00 PM

Where: Wake County Sheriff/Wake County Department of Public Safety, 330 S. Salisbury St., Raleigh, NC 

Why: Because it’s high time somebody did

Added bonus: GRNC will have “Remember in November” voter guides and JFP Judicial Voter Guides available in quantities for you to distribute to friends and acquaintances.

Please R.S.V.P.: Please confirm attendance, including name and approximate number of people attending by emailing: DirectorofDevelopment@GRNC.org 

Guidelines for demonstrators:

* Under § 14-277.2(a), “It shall be unlawful for any person participating in, affiliated with, or present as a spectator at any …  demonstration upon any private health care facility or upon any public place owned or under the control of the State or any of its political subdivisions to willfully or intentionally possess or have immediate access to any dangerous weapon.”
* Please dress for the press: Please avoid clothing with inflammatory slogans, camouflage, or other items which would allow the media to dismiss us as a fringe element.
* Please show the world what a truly peaceful protest looks like.

UPDATE: Now this is interesting. I just tried to post a link to this post on my dedicated blog page on Facebook. It was denied because someone had reported this information as “abusive”.

Surrounded in all red, the message read:

Warning Your message couldn’t be sent because it includes content that other people on Facebook have reported as abusive.”

Women On Trump’s SCOTUS List, Intro

With the death from cancer of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on September 18th, President Trump will have the chance to nominate her successor to the Supreme Court. The left has gone bonkers, the Democrats are promising court packing a’la FDR, and some progressives are mad that Justice Ginsburg didn’t retire sooner.

In remarks made yesterday, President Trump has indicated he will announce his choice either Friday or Saturday. He also has said it has come down to one of five women.

Or as the Babylon Bee humorously illustrated:

There are 12 women on President Trump’s short list of nominees. This includes those just named to the 2020 list and those on the earlier lists.

They are:

  • Judge Bridget Bade, 9th Circuit Court of Appeals
  • Judge Amy Coney Barrett, 7th Circuit Court of Appeals
  • Judge Allison Eid, 10th Circuit Court of Appeals
  • Judge Britt Grant, 11th Circuit Court of Appeals
  • Judge Barbara Lagoa, 11th Circuit Court of Appeals
  • Judge Joan Larsen, 6th Circuit Court of Appeals
  • Judge Martha Pacold, Northern District of Illinois
  • Judge Sarah Pitlyk, Eastern District of Missouri
  • Judge Allison Jones Rushing, 4th Circuit Court of Appeals
  • Judge Margaret “Meg” Ryan, Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces
  • Judge Diane Sykes, 7th Circuit Court of Appeals
  • Kathryn “Kate” Todd, Deputy White House Counsel

Rumor has it that the five on the short, short list are Amy Coney Barrett, Barbara Lagoa, Allison Jones Rushing, Joan Larsen, and Kate Todd with Barrett and Lagoa being the leading contenders.

As an aside, Allison Jones Rushing is from Hendersonville, NC which is just a few miles away. She is also the youngest on the list.

The 2020 Gun Rights Policy Conference In Four Parts

The 2020 Gun Rights Policy Conference is now history. Unlike the previous 34 years, this year’s conference was put on virtually as a result of the pandemic. The hotel in Orlando just couldn’t handle the number of visitors that GRPC attracts.

The conference usually opens with a reception on Friday night. This year that “reception” became a cocktail party hosted over Zoom. It was repeated on Saturday night, too.

Each day was divided into two videos. You can see the full agenda here.

Saturday started with an invocation delivered by my good friend Pastor Kenn Blanchard, “The Black Man with a Gun”.

The Sunday sessions started with a discussion on suicide and suicide awareness. Dr. Jennifer Stuber, founder and director of Forefront Suicide Prevention, kicked it off. I met Dr. Stuber for the first time at the GRPC held in Dallas when she spoke on this topic. There, she related how she lost her husband to suicide.

The conference concluded with a memorial to the late Joe Tartaro. He will be missed.

There is a ton of information here. If you didn’t have a chance to listen live, you can go through the whole conference in these four videos. Share these with friends but most importantly gain from the knowledge presented to advance our fight for freedom.

US Land Use Infographic

As they used to say on Monty Python, “And now for something totally different.”

If you have followed this blog over the years, you know I love a good infographic. Presenting data graphically makes it more accessible and more readily understandable.

I came across this infographic on land use in the United States. It divides a map of the US up into sections based upon land use. Pasturage for cows is the number one land use in America. Obviously, we like our beef and we like our dairy products.

I’m not sure where I found it but it seems to have originated with an article on Bloomberg from 2018.