Shannon Watts, who founded Moms Demand Action as a way to reinvigorate her PR career, is now stepping down as the leader.
After starting @MomsDemand and serving as a full-time volunteer for a decade, I’m stepping back from my leadership role at the end of 2023. It's been the honor of a lifetime to lead this organization and fight for gun safety while empowering women to lead.https://t.co/pCDCRjUVPn
According to an exclusive story in the Washington Post – written by a reporter for whose book Watts gave a endorsement blurb – she used her AD/HD disorder to “hyperfocus for many hours straight, a skill she’s harnessed hundreds of times to live-tweet details and context after shootings.”
Context after shootings? Is this a new term for dancing in the blood of the victims?
The story also stated her security guard was “unarmed” and that his job was to know where the nearest hospital was if she got attacked. I’m sorry but that is Grade A bullshit.
Having watched Watts over the years as she moved from Indiana to Colorado to California, all I can surmise is that she is either going to run for office herself or has found another billionaire for her next self-aggrandizing project. I just cannot see her giving up the limelight to retire to a quiet life.
I built a dossier on Watts over the years using publicly available information. Most of it was just general information such as the value of her various mansions, wedding pictures, etc. I did find interesting her hypocrisy on campus carry given that her older daughter Abby started college at Colorado State University where campus carry was legal.
So as Shannon supposedly rides off into the sunset, I dedicate this 1969 hit single to her. I would just change the “him” in the lyrics to “her”.
Wait a minute – Harriet Hageman? Where have I heard that name before? Didn’t someone by that name defeat former Rep. Liz Cheney (RINO-WY) in the primary and go on to win the seat in Congress representing Wyoming?
New Civil Liberties Alliance
Before Harriet Hageman was Congresswoman Hageman, she was Harriet Hageman, Senior Litigation Counsel of the NCLA.
From what I understand she has not been assigned any committees yet. However, wouldn’t it be wonderful to have someone like her on the House Judiciary Committee. Think of it. Not only did she defeat the DOJ and BATFE in court, she would now be on the House committee overseeing them. That would be karma!
I have not had time to read the whole decision and I have to run in a few minutes to help set up a booth for Grass Roots North Carolina at the local gun show. With that out of the way, the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled en banc that the BATFE’s bumpstock ban is invalid. The decision was 13-3.
The definition of “machinegun” as set forth in the National Firearms Act and Gun Control Act does not apply to bump stocks. And if there were any doubt as to this conclusion, we conclude that the statutory definition is ambiguous, at the very least. The rule of lenity therefore compels us to construe the statute in Cargill’s favor. Either way, we must REVERSE.
Later the ruling states on the grammatical construction of the law:
The statutory definition of machinegun utilizes a grammatical construction that ties the definition to the movement of the trigger itself, and not the movement of a trigger finger. Nor do we rely on grammar alone. Context firmly corroborates what grammar initially suggests by demonstrating that Congress knew how to write a definition that is keyed to the movement of the trigger finger if it wanted to. But it did not. The Government offers nothing to overcome this plain reading, so that we are obliged to conclude that the statutory definition of machinegun unambiguously turns on the movement of the trigger and not a trigger finger.
The court does take up Chevron deference and states it does not apply here as the wording of the statute is unambiguous.
The opinion of the court was written by Judge Jennifer Walker Elrod who was appointed by President George W. Bush.
Anti-gun politicians in Illinois are pushing hard for HB-5855. This bill includes a magazine ban which includes possession as well as a ban on the sale of new “assault weapons”.
1. Call your IL State Legislators at their State and Local Offices
about HB-5855!
2. State your name.
3. State your address.
4. Let them know you are a concerned constituent of theirs
5. “I am calling you to request that you vote NO on HB5855 or any similar bill that takes away my Second Amendment rights.
Thank you for your consideration.”
Todd Vandermyde, former NRA lobbyist in Illinois and the guy who knows more about gun laws in Illinois than anybody, has produced a series of YouTube videos on the bill. Included is his testimony as a private citizen before the Illinois State House.
The most recent:
From December 30th:
Todd’s testimony to the committee hearing on December 20th:
The press releases from vendors appearing at the SHOT Show are starting to pile up. Some are for products that are of interest to most readers (guns!) and some are more appropriate for the military and law enforcement audience.
I did get one the other day on a product called the Q-Collar intended to minimize head injuries on the battlefield or football field. It really is not a product that many of my readers would need. However, my major interest in going to that booth is to meet former Carolina Panthers linebacker Luke Kuechly. He was a seven-time All-Pro player plus the 2013 Defensive Player of the Year. He walked away from the NFL after the 2019 season at the age of 28 rather than suffer more head injuries. I admired him for making that decision.
I can’t stop at every booth at the SHOT Show but I can make an effort to stop at those whose products are of interest to you. Here is a list of all the exhibitors that will be attending the SHOT Show this year. If something catches your eye, let me know in the comments. I will try to make it to that booth and post a report here.
Politicians need reminders on who “brung them to the dance” lest they start believing they did it all on their own. A sparkling personality and a impressive résumé can only take you so far. Effective outside help should always be appreciated.
Paul Valone, President of Grass Roots North Carolina, realizes this. He just issued two open letters: one to Speaker Tim Moore of the NC House and one to Sen. Phil Berger, President Pro Tem of the NC Senate. The only difference in the letters is that the Republicans received a supermajority in the State Senate while falling one short in the House.
The letters (see an example below) remind Moore and Berger of both the efforts and the results from the independent expenditures made by the GRNC-PVF and the Judicial Fairness Project. 34 races were targeted and 27 wins recorded or nearly an 80% win rate.
They are then told of the legislative priorities for GRNC in the next session. These include permitless carry, getting rid of the pistol purchase permit, eliminating the “church carry loophole”, and protecting shooting on private property. Vetoes by Gov. Roy Cooper (D-NC) negated the wins in the last session which sought to eliminate the pistol purchase permit and allowing churches with schools to permit carry during non-school hours. Neither veto was overridden. With the supermajority in the Senate and the near supermajority in the House, chances are that a veto could be overridden this time. The letter concludes by saying Valone is confident that the Republicans will advance the rights of Second Amendment supporters.
It began with the concept by Rob Pincus for an ideal concealed carry firearm and ended with the Avidity Arms’ PD10 which releases this month and begins shipping in February. In between the beginning and the end result of a production gun ready for market were changes of company structure, business plans, vendors, unavoidable delays, and a pandemic.
An ideal carry pistol, according to Pincus, needs to be built around these three concepts: carryability, shootability, and reliability. The last concept is self-evident. You want the pistol to work when you need it to work without failure every time. Both carryability and shootability deal, in part, with the size of the pistol. A full-size pistol with an 18+1 or even a 20+1 capacity is going to be heavy, hard to conceal, harder for smaller hands to grip (without interchangeable backstraps), and is better suited for law enforcement, competition, or the range. Likewise, too small of a pistol, while easier to carry, will be harder to grip and shoot accurately. This led Pincus to specify a slim, single-stack, 10+1 capacity, with a 4-5” barrel, and that allowed a grip with all fingers. The pistol, he went on to add, should be polymer, striker-fired, in 9mm, easy to field-strip, with rear sights that allowed one-handed cocking.
It is interesting to note that this is the first defensive pistol designed and brought to market by a defensive shooting instructor. Pincus left full time law enforcement in 2001 and has spent the vast majority of the twenty years since that time developing and conducting defensive shooting courses, with a student list that includes high end military units, police agencies from all around the US and Europe, and tens of thousands of concealed carriers. It makes sense that he should have some valid ideas about defensive pistol design. He also contributed significantly to the final design of FK BRNO PSD Pistol, which earned the NRA Golden Bullseye for Handgun of the year in 2020.
In the end, the production model of the PD10 meets Pincus’ requirements. Here are its specifications:
Safety index point on frame for positioning of trigger finger
Safety: Integrated trigger, firing pin block
Loaded chamber indicator
Overall Length: 6.94″
Width at widest: 1″
Overall Weight: 18.8 oz.
ISONITE QPQ Coating
As noted, there have been changes in the corporate structure of Avidity Arms since Pincus began developing this pistol in 2013. While originally envisioned as a stand alone company, the project actually started within Eagle Imports but that changed when Mike Sodini, Rob’s original collaborator and former President of Eagle Imports, left them in 2018. Fast forward through the Covid-19 pandemic to February 2022. It was at that time that Joe Worley of AlphaTech, Inc. of Fletcher, NC joined the ownership team of Pincus, Sodini, and Chuck Usina of Ancient City Shooting Range of St. Augustine, FL. Chuck, Pincus’ longtime friend had been helping the project informally with his gunsmithing and mechanical know-how from the start and formally joined the team when the company moved to Florida in 2019. The addition of Joe Worley accelerated final development of the PD10 because he brought with him a high-tech, ISO 9001, company that had state of the art machining capabilities and experience as a supplier to the firearms industry. Worley had been impressed with the design of the PD10 and wanted to be more than just a contract manufacturer of parts.
This past September, Randy Miyan, Executive Director of theLiberal Gun Owners, and I were invited by Pincus to visit the Alpha Tech facility (the new headquarters of Avidity Arms) and to test fire some of the prototypes. Given that the factory is literally 5 minutes from my house, I was thrilled with the invite. After getting some insight on the development of the PD10 and the work being done on it at Alpha Tech, we toured the plant. They had the full range of high-end manufacturing equipment including CNC machines, robots, electrical discharge machining (EDM) cutting machines, lathes, Bridgeport milling machines, and the like.
AlphaTech floor
Robot feeding CNC machine
After touring the factory, we adjourned to their small outdoor firing range to fire the prototypes of the PD10. My first impressions were that the pistol was easy to control, it fit my smaller hand with short fingers well, it didn’t have much muzzle flip, it was accurate, and I really liked the sights. The prototypes had the I.C.E. Claw rear sight (also designed by Pincus about a decade ago) which was all black and the front sight was an Ameriglo™ lumisquare™ with Tritium™ insert. It made it easy to concentrate on the front sight.
Testing PD10 prototype
In mid-December, I returned to the Alpha Tech facility to meet with Pincus and the team at Alpha Tech. I also met Chuck and Krista Usina for the first time. This visit offered a chance to participate in a multi-day endurance test that was being conducted to take two production specification samples past 5000 rounds. All the metal parts of the PD10, with the exception of a few springs and the magazine bodies, are now being manufactured by Alpha Tech and the complete pistol is 100% US made. Changes from what I saw in September include coating internal parts for wear and lubricity and replacing the polymer backplate with a steel backplate. In addition, they now had an optional optics cut slide for red dot optics. As noted in the specs, they use the Holosun Optics 507K / Shield RMSc footprint.
Courtesy of Rob Pincus
Joe Worley emphasized two major things about the manufacture of the PD10. First, there are no MIM (metal injected molded) parts in any component. The metal parts are all machined from high-grade billet or stamped. Second, instead of using stock roll pins, they precision grind all their own pins for best fit and function. This takes tolerances from +/- .002 to +/-.0001 or 20 times more precise.
After meeting in the plant, I went down to their range to meet with Pincus and Cannon Dillon who is the project manager for the PD10. They were in the process of durability testing the PD10. The goal was 5,000 rounds per pistol. I got to shoot a few mags through one of the pistols that had a Holosun red dot on it.
PD10 with Holosun EPS Carry
While taking a break, there was some discussion on whether the PD10 would be shown at the upcoming SHOT Show. I learned that it will be featured it will be shown at the Davidson’s booth (72317) as they will be distributing the PD10-OC. This has great implications for the general public in that they will be able to take advantage of Davidson’sGallery of Guns to purchase the PD10. This means you can have the PD10 delivered to your local FFL with no transfer fee because, in essence, you bought it from the FFL. From my own parochial perspective, I love the North Carolina connection in all of this. Davidson’s, while now headquartered in Arizona, was founded in my hometown of Greensboro and now will be distributing a North Carolina-made pistol.
A carry pistol needs a holster and the PD10 will have them available from three different holster makers. Leather holsters for outside waistband, inside waistband, and appendix carry will be available fromJM4 Tactical of Abilene, Texas. G-Code Holsters out of Burgaw, NC will be making the Kydex holsters for the PD10 in their Phenom Stealth and the Synchron models. Finally, hybrid holsters will be available from TacRigof Shorewood, OR. The shell can be used either OWB or IWB. All three companies will have them available in either right or left handed versions and they will be available directly from those manufacturers or through the AvidityArms.com website before the first pistols are shipped in February.
JM4 Tactical
Tacrig
Pricing has been set for the PD10. The MSRP for the standard PD10 will be $599. The optics cut version will have a MSRP of $625. Given the minimal price differential, if it were me, I’d go with the optics cut version just for the versatility. Street prices will probably be a bit less.
In conclusion, I liked it and intend to buy one. This is not because it is being made in North Carolina or that I was given a chance to shoot both the prototype and the pre-release production models. I liked it because it felt good in my hands, it shot well, and it was accurate.
Cylinder and Slide would like to announce that after 44+ years of business, we are ceasing operations. We would like to thank our countless customers and fellow industry partners for all their support and assistance throughout all these years.
We do have quite a bit of inventory, fixtures, equipment, factory parts, etc that we would like to move. If you have any potential interest, we are accepting email inquiries only; info@cylinder-slide.com. There is too much list at the moment, but we are generating lists of what we have.
Please congratulate Bill on being able to finally retire!
I only got to meet Bill once and that was at last year’s Dallas Safari Club Convention. He was working on one of the new Springfield Armory SA-35 Hi-Power clones. He gave me a few minutes of his time to talk to me about his impression of this pistol. It was good, by the way.
Innumerable articles have been written about the custom pistols that have come of that shop. Here is a link to a few of them.
Another announcement notes that guns that are in process will be finished. For those that have a deposit down waiting for custom work, the deposit will be refunded. They suggest going to the American Pistolsmith Guild (see above link) to find a pistolsmith if you need custom work done.
A story posted on Soldier Systems this past week caught my eye. It seems that the Royal Canadian Mounted Police aka The Mounties have posted a tender notice saying they are seeking a new service pistol. This pistol will replace their Smith & Wesson Model 5946.
Determining that the current weapon has exceeded its life expectancy, they are looking for a modern design offering reduced trigger pull weight, various frame sizes, and a reduction in overall weight as well as the ability mount both a weapon light and Red Dot Sight (RDS).
While they are sticking with 9mm, the RCMP desires a mechanically locked, recoil-operated, striker-fired semi-automatic pistol with polymer frame which can accommodate at least three grip sizes. The pistol must also be matte black, corrosion resistant, and equipped with iron backup sights in addition to the RDS.
While the pistol must have no external manual safety levers, grip safeties, and push-button safeties, it must fireable without a magazine installed.
This requirement is fairly unique, each pistol must come with a ceremonial lanyard loop that can be attached to the pistol magazine’s base plate. Additionally, the slide must be steel.
Example of RCMP pistol lanyard
In the solicitation’s Annex A – Statement of Work regarding one factor in the assessment of the new pistol I found this:
The RCMP is committed to being progressive, proactive, and innovative (Royal Canadian Mounted Police, 2006) and, having a diverse and modern workforce (Government of Canada’s diversity and inclusion priority), this requires that the RCMP’s general duty (GD) pistol be examined from a Gender-based perspective (Gender-based Analysis+(GBA+)).
Indeed, when the solicitation lists the expected outcomes, alignment with diversity and inclusion by “leveraging Gender Based Analysis (GBA+) in the selection of the service pistols” is first on the list. It comes before reliability or any other requirement.
Given Prime Minister Trudeau’saim to disarm all Canadians, I fail to see why the RCMP even needs a new pistol or even a pistol in general. In areas where there are dangerous wildlife such as the polar bears of Churchill, Manitoba, I’d say they should be able to make due with the cast-off .303 Lee Enfields from the Canadian Rangers. For the rest of the Mounties, they should be able to make due with harsh, impolite words, eh!
Savage Arms is expanding their pistol lineup. They have had the polymer, striker-fired, micro-nine Stance pistol for a year now. They are now adding an assortment of full or Government-sized 1911s to this lineup. They will available in both .45 ACP and 9×19.
As you can see from the photo above, these Savage 1911s are available in three finishes. In addition, they are available with rails or without them.
More on this new introduction from the Savage press release:
WESTFIELD, Massachusetts – December 21, 2022 – Savage Arms is proud to announce the latest addition to its handgun line-up, the Savage 1911 Government Style Models. Built for tough use and unmatched accuracy, Savage’s 1911s bring modern technology to a time-tested platform and deliver reliability, accuracy and performance that will stand out amongst competitive offerings.
“Savage ended 2021 with the introduction of Stance, a micro-compact 9mm handgun,” said Beth Shimanski, Director of Marketing at Savage Arms. “A year later in 2022, we’re ending strong yet again in the handgun arena with the launch of the Savage 1911 Government Style Models. We’re extremely excited to introduce this iconic firearm bearing the Savage name.”
This revolutionary firearm is built to the demanding standards of accuracy and reliability that have come to define Savage Arms across platforms and categories. With features offering optimal performance for all shooting enthusiasts, this classic gun gets the ultimate Savage treatment.
“I’ve worked in the firearms Industry for over 30 years and started my career as a professional shooter,” said Rob Gates, Vice President of Sales and Marketing at Savage Arms. “This Savage 1911 is as real as they come and shoots better than any production 1911 I’ve handled during my 30 plus years in this industry.”
With a look that pays homage to the classic design, the Savage 1911 has a dual recoil spring and machined sear and disconnector, a nitride coated titanium firing pin and weighs in at just over 2 LBS with a 5” barrel length. Finishes range from black melonite to stainless steel and the Savage 1911 is sure to be 2023’s leading single-action pistol.
New Model features include:
5” Stainless Steel Barrel Machined from Billet with 11º Target Crown
Ambidextrous Slide lock Safety
Dual Recoil Spring with Fully Machined Sear and Hammer
Ejection Port Lowered, Flared and Cut for Live Round Ejection
Forged Stainless Steel Frame and Slide
Nitride Coated Titanium Firing Pin
Novak® Lo-Mount Adjustable Tritium Bar Rear Sight and Tritium Mega Dot Glow Dome™ Yellow Front Sight (Rail & Two-Tone Versions)
VZ G10 Grips
The MSRP price range on these Savage 1911 pistols starts at $1,350 for the Melonite and Stainless models without rails and goes up to $1,500 for any of the railed models regardless of finish. There is no price difference by caliber.
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