by Could you imagine if they combined parkour with IDPA, USPSA, or IPSC? It would be like the X Games on steroids!
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Coast Guard Snipers
When you think of military snipers, you usually don’t think of the U.S. Coast Guard. However, the USCG Maritime Security Response Team has snipers as part of that team. They serve to provide support for the boarding teams.
Prospects For Concealed Carry In Illinois Improve
In the past, concealed carry bills have tended to have more support in the Illinois House than in the Illinois Senate. CCW bills have in the past been sent to the Senate Public Health Committee which is dominated by Senators from Chicago. They have died in committee as a result.
This year may be different.
Senate President John Cullerton (D-Chicago) said in an interview Tuesday with WSIL-TV in Carbondale that if concealed carry passes the House and there is enough support in the Senate the bill would get a vote.
Tuesday in Carbondale, Cullerton indicated that even though he is opposed to “people having loaded weapons on them,” he would consider assigning the bill to another committee.
Noting that concealed carry has not fared well in the Public Health committee, Cullerton said, “If it does pass the House, if we have enough folks that want to have a vote on the Senate floor we can have that vote.”
While the Illinois House just defeated state pre-emption by not passing that bill with a great enough majority, concealed carry looks it might have enough to pass. Rep. Brandon Phelps (D-Harrisburg) is quoted in the same Chicago Tribune article about concealed carry.
Also today, Rep. Brandon Phelps said he is close to pulling together 71 votes to pass his proposal to allow people to carry a concealed weapon. But Phelps, D-Harrisburg, said he doesn’t plan on calling the bill for a vote until the House returns from its break in late April, giving him time to refine the measure.
“We’re three to four votes short right now,” Phelps said. “But now that all the law enforcement groups are for it, they’re talking about it more and more. But there is definitely a big push from the city of Chicago right now trying to beat this – a huge push.”
Again, as with all things concerning guns in Illinois, it is Chicago versus the rest of the state.
Quote Of The Day
Sean at An NC Gun Blog has what must be considered the Quote of the Day:
Come on people, if you can’t keep guns out of the hands of terrorists living on an island, where can you do it?
Sean was speaking about a story from Omagh, County Tyrone in Northern Ireland where a man was charged under their terrorism laws for having 3 shotguns, a sub-machine gun, ammunition, and explosives. While shotguns are legal, he had them “under suspicious circumstances.”
The Emperor Has No Clothes
If the President’s limo was a Chevy Volt or a Toyota Prius, he might have a point about the gas mileage of certain SUV’s. However, when you always are driven around in either an armored limo or an armored Chevy/GMC Suburban or Tahoe and your gas is paid for by the taxpayers, I think you’ve forfeited your right to criticize anyone who drives a SUV or any car for that matter. I think the only electric vehicle that you’ll see Mr. Obama in is a golf cart.
They Agree On One Thing
The two men running for Mayor of Jacksonville, Florida agree on one thing. They don’t want any part of Mayor Bloomberg’s Illegal Mayors unlike the outgoing mayor, John Peyton, who is a member.
According to a story in the Florida Times-Union, agreeing on non-participation in MAIG is about the only thing that Democrat Alvin Brown and Republican Mike Hogan do agree on.
Mike Hogan, the Republican, is currently the Tax Collector for Duval County and was formerly a Florida State Representative. Hogan, pictured below with his wife Judy, had this to say on his website about Mayors Against Illegal Guns and the Second Amendment.
Mike Hogan is the only candidate in this race with a proven record of fighting on behalf of Florida’s gun owners. He fought against legislation that would have virtually halted our gun shows and voted for legislation that prohibits state and local governments from suing gun manufacturers. Mike has an A Rating from the NRA.
As Jacksonville’s next mayor, Mike Hogan will continue to fight for the Second Amendment, beginning with an end to the City of Jacksonville’s affiliation with Mayors Against Illegal Guns, a deceptively-named national organization that often puts gun control over crime prevention.
Alvin Brown, the Democrat, is currently Executive in Residence at Jacksonville University’s College of Business and is a former advisor to President Bill Clinton, VP Al Gore, and NY Gov. Andrew Cuomo when Cuomo was Secretary of HUD. He calls himself a conservative Democrat. Brown, pictured below, at a press conference on his position opposing membership in MAIG as reported by the Florida Times-Union.
Brown, asked about (Hogan’s) website reference , said he believed that anything accomplished by the program could be handled locally and saw no need to spend resources to continue in the program.
Brown said he’ll first focus on keeping youths from having the need to seek out a gun that can only be purchased illegally.
“I would focus,” he said, “on making sure we prevent young people from becoming ex-felons in the first place.“
While Brown’s statements above are not as strong on the Second Amendment as those of Hogan, they both agree that participation in Bloomberg’s Mayors Against Illegal Guns is not in the future for Jacksonville, Florida.
Speculations On Operation Fast And Furious
Michael Bane devoted a good part of his weekly Down Range Radio podcast to Project Gunwalker. Given that Michael is the master of the rant, it was entertaining as well as thought-provoking. You can listen to it by going to the link above or downloading it on iTunes.
He has two threads of speculation about Project Gunwalker and those involved in running it. As he calls it, “just wild and crazy speculation”. Nonetheless, it makes good sense.
First, that Operation Fast and Furious is only one of the programs with “Jolly Pirate names” that allowed weapons to be smuggled into Mexico. We only know of this one because of the brave whistle-blowers who were sickened that fellow U.S. law enforcement officers were killed with the “walked” guns.
Second, in his experience Bane notes, that BATFE loves their gadgets. This is especially true of gadgets that supposedly will help them in their law enforcement functions. The gun dealers who worked with BATFE on Operation Fast and Furious (despite their grave reservations on selling AK-47s to what they knew in their gut were straw purchasers) were selling 10, 20, and even 40 AKs at a time. This leads to the question – why didn’t BATFE chip the guns with mini GPS trackers? It would have been very easy to chip these guns and then call the purchasers saying your guns have arrived.
The chip shown above was from 2008 and sold publicly. Imagine how much smaller one of these devices sold into the restricted Federal law enforcement market would probably be.
Expanding on the mini GPS trackers, one must wonder why the cars and trucks of the known straw purchasers and smugglers weren’t tagged with auto-sized GPS trackers. It might have enabled BATFE to actually follow the guns into the Mexico and not lose them.
As Michael notes, this is all speculation. Maybe we have all watched too many cop shows on TV and expect all law enforcement to use those gee-whiz gadgets even when they don’t. Still, you have to wonder.
107 – 105 (Updated)
No, that isn’t a NBA basketball score. And it certainly was not the score in the UConn vs. Butler game for the National Championship.
Actually that is the number of co-sponsors that HR 822 – National Right-To-Carry Reciprocity Act of 2011 – has versus those for HR 308 – Large Capacity Ammunition Feeding Device Act of 2011. We have finally overtaken the number of co-sponsors for Rep. Carolyn McCarthy’s bill. While they are close to topping out, there are still a good number of pro-gun Congressmen who have not signed up as co-sponsors.
The seven Congressmen who put it in the lead are:
Rep Denham, Jeff [CA-19] – 4/4/2011
Rep Ryan, Tim [OH-17] – 4/4/2011
Rep Camp, Dave [MI-4] – 4/4/2011
Rep Lucas, Frank D. [OK-3] – 4/4/2011
Rep McKinley, David B. [WV-1] – 4/4/2011
Rep Shuster, Bill [PA-9] – 4/4/2011
Rep Reed, Tom [NY-29] – 4/4/2011
The new co-sponsors include six Republicans and one Democrat. Representatives Camp and Lucas are also part of the Republican leadership as chairmen of major committees (Ways and Means Comm. and Agriculture Comm.)
UPDATE: It should now read 116 to 105 as another nine Representatives have joined the co-sponsors’ list. I am especially pleased to see Rep. Renee Ellmers (R-NC-2) on the list as she has a concealed carry permit and didn’t hide the fact during the 2010 campaign – or after Gabby Giffords was shot.
Rep Thompson, Glenn [PA-5] – 4/5/2011
Rep Guinta, Frank C. [NH-1] – 4/5/2011
Rep Brooks, Mo [AL-5] – 4/5/2011
Rep Ellmers, Renee L. [NC-2] – 4/5/2011
Rep Conaway, K. Michael [TX-11] – 4/5/2011
Rep Flores, Bill [TX-17] – 4/5/2011
Rep Marchant, Kenny [TX-24] – 4/5/2011
Rep Murphy, Tim [PA-18] – 4/5/2011
Rep Brady, Kevin [TX-8] – 4/5/2011
JayG Reviews The S&W Model 360PD
Jay G of MArooned just did a guest article for GunsForSale.com on the Smith and Wesson Model 360PD. This is a .357 Magnum snubbie with a fireball to prove it.
Or as Jay G calls it, “the Snubbie from Hell™..”
The recoil of a .357 Magnum round through a 12 ounce handgun has been described as anywhere from “stout” to “punishing” to “oh my word what have I done to my wrist”. This author has, on more than one occasion, offered the 360PD to accomplished shooters who are curious to see what a 12 ounce .357 Magnum revolver feels like to shoot – and gotten the snubbie back after only two rounds.
However, as Jay G concludes when it comes to concealed carry, “life is about tradeoffs.”
Weak Industry?
Josh Sugarman, Executive Director of the Violence Policy Center, had an article in the Huffington Post on Monday with his analysis of the retracted Freedom Group IPO. Based on this one company, he said the gun industry was in decline due to a “a cratering gun market”.
I guess the folks at Sturm, Ruger didn’t get the message that their market was “cratering”. They announced on Monday the results of the share repurchase program.
Sturm, Ruger & Company, Inc. (NYSE-RGR), today announced that during the first quarter of 2011 the Company repurchased 133,400 shares of its common stock for $2.0 million in the open market. The average price per share repurchased was $14.94. These repurchases were funded with cash on hand. At the end of the first quarter of 2011, $8.0 million remains authorized and available for share repurchases and 18.9 million shares remain outstanding.
Rarely do weak companies repurchase their own stock. The primary reason is that they don’t have the cash on hand for the transaction. You will note that Ruger used cash on hand to fund these repurchases.
Stock repurchases generally increase shareholder value and are a positive thing. Ruger paid an average price of $14.94 per share. Yesterday’s closing price for Ruger (RGR) stock was $23.00 per share. That is a 53.9% increase.
The stock market obviously doesn’t perceive that Ruger is in a “cratering gun market”. According to website Seeking Alpha, in mid-March when the S&P 500 dropped 4.3%, Ruger was one of the companies that bucked the trend.
The bottom line is that certain segments of the firearms market are stronger than others. Handguns are the hot segment of the firearms market. This is especially true of smaller, more concealable handguns. Freedom Group – other than Remington’s 1911R1 – is not in the handgun business. Ruger is in the handgun market and has moved strongly into the smaller pistols and revolvers. The results of that move are evident in its stock price.