I came across these two infographics today and found that they presented a lot of good data in a way that could be understood.
First, are guns and ammo the new gold?
Via: Ammo.net
The second infographic looks at the rise in the cost of 5.56×45 or .223 ammo. It correlates very well with political and economic events.
Via: Ammo.net
Hopefully I will never be the target of a home invasion. That said, training to be able to shoot with a carbine from both your strong side and your support side sounds like a useful skill to have in case of one.
I had never heard of Bushido Tactical until I came across this video by AR15.com.
What really caught my eye is their gun belt with the Cobra buckle. I have a gun belt with this same buckle but have to remove the buckle to get it through the belt loops. The Bushido Tactical gun belt with Cobra buckle is made in such a way that you can twist the buckle sideways and fit it through your belt loops.
According to their website, the belts retail for $59.95. While this is pricey, it isn’t out of line for a good gun belt. I know I paid $50 for a similar belt from Endeavor Stitch Works.
In what I assume is part of the Friday night document dump, we are learning about the symbiotic relationship and personal connections between the Joyce-funded University of Chicago Crime Lab and ATF brass. The Crime Lab is not a forensics lab but rather a social policy institute investigating violence and crime with a special emphasis on “gun violence”.
Mike Vanderboegh in a Sipsey Street Exclusive has the story including the e-mails between the Crime Lab’s Executive Director Roseanna Ander, who served with the Joyce Foundation for ten years before heading the Crime Lab, and ATF brass including Bill Newell.
It makes for some very interesting reading and confirms some suspicions about the connections between the firearms regulators and the gun prohibitionists.
Lori Jean Gliha of ABC15 in Phoenix has been one of the best local sources for information on Project Gunwalker. Her station and five others sued to get more court documents released in the murder of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry. We finally have a name and a charge for the person who pulled the trigger: Manuel Osorio Arellanes is charged with second degree murder in Terry’s death.
Those documents can be found here. The firearm that Manuel Osorio Arellanes or the other redacted defendant was accused of possessing, a Romanian WASR-10/63 AK-47, serial number 1971CZ3775, was one of two Operation Fast and Furious firearms traced to the murder scene. (See p.46 of the Oversight Report) I may be mistaken as I’m going from memory here but I don’t think either of these weapons had been tied conclusively to Agent Terry’s murder before now. It has always been said they were at the scene but never used in his murder. If the court documents are accurate – and there is no reason to believe that they aren’t – then the government is now saying a gunwalked AK was used to kill Agent Terry.
This is political dynamite! No wonder the Democrats are working so hard to blame the locals and exonerate Eric Holder.
UPDATE: In an article published last night, Dennis Wagner of the Arizona Republic says the second person indicted for the murder of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry is Rito Osorio-Arellanes.
The U.S. District Court documents name Rito Osorio-Arellanes, 41, who is believed to be a brother of the only previously named defendant, Manuel Osorio-Arellanes.
Wagner notes in his article that there is a third suspect who remains at large and who has not been identified.
Here is the full Minority Report released by House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Ranking Member Elijah Cummings.
You will note that significant effort is put into “Bush did it” claims and that the personnel recommendations note that those involved on the ground have either resigned or be reassigned.
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In what can only be considered a preemptive strike in advance of Attorney General Eric Holder’s appearance before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, Ranking Member Elijah Cummings (D-MD) has released a report from the committee minority staff that blames Project Gunwalker entirely on the ATF Phoenix Field Division. It explicitly exonerates senior DOJ officials including Holder and Lanny Breuer.
From Cummings’ press release:
Cummings Issues Report Detailing Five Years of Gunwalking Operations in Arizona
Comprehensive Report Finds No Evidence that Senior Officials Approved Controversial Tactic
Washington, DC (Jan. 31, 2012)—Today, Rep. Elijah E. Cummings, Ranking Member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, issued a 95-page minority staff report entitled “Fatally Flawed: Five Years of Gunwalking in Arizona.” The report describes the results of the Committee’s year-long investigation into the actions and circumstances that led to multiple gunwalking operations in Arizona from 2006 to 2010.
According to a letter Cummings sent to Committee Members accompanying the report, “this report tells the story of how misguided gunwalking operations originated in 2006 as ATF’s Phoenix Field Division devised a strategy to forgo prosecutions against low-level straw purchasers while they attempted to build bigger charges.”
The report finds that this strategy failed to include sufficient operational controls to stop these dangerous weapons from getting into the hands of violent criminals, creating a danger to public safety on both sides of the border. Rather than halting operations after flaws became evident, ATF’s Phoenix Field Division launched several similarly reckless operations over the course of several years, according to the report, also with tragic results.
Cummings’ letter noted that he instructed his staff “to focus on the facts we have discovered rather than the heated and sometimes inaccurate rhetoric that has characterized much of this investigation.”
“Contrary to repeated claims by some, the Committee has obtained no evidence that Operation Fast and Furious was a politically-motivated operation conceived and directed by high-level Obama Administration political appointees at the Department of Justice,” Cummings wrote in his letter. “The documents obtained and interviews conducted by the Committee indicate that it was the latest in a series of reckless and fatally flawed operations run by ATF’s Phoenix Field Division during both the previous and current administrations.”
The report sets forth ten constructive recommendations intended to address specific problems identified during the course of this investigation.
As might be expected from the rabid anti-gunners composing the Democrat side of the committee, many of their “constructive recommendations” are calls for more gun control. They include continuing and expanding the multiple semi-automatic rifle reporting requirement, repealing the Tiahrt Amendment, enactment of a “dedicated firearms trafficking law”, and more money for ATF.
The New York Times’ Charlie Savage has a long story on this effort by the Democrats on the House Oversight Committee to shield Holder and other DOJ officials. After three paragraphs trumpeting the Democrats’ conclusions and so-called exoneration of Holder, even the Times has to admit the timing is suspect.
Still, because the report was written by Democrats, the political impact of its conclusion exonerating high-level officials of wrongdoing may be limited. Its publication comes two days before Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. is to testify before the committee.
In the Times article, there is significant discussion of the letter sent by DOJ to Sen. Chuck Grassley on February 4, 2011 which falsely denied any gun-walking took place. It seems to cast the blame for the false claims on Patrick Cunningham, the former head of the U.S. Attorney for Arizona’s criminal section. Cunningham, you may recall, has elected not to answer questions from Committee investigators and has pled the Fifth.
One of the rumors coming out of the SHOT Show was that Para-USA was in negotiations with Cerberus’s Freedom Group to be bought out. The release sent out today by the Freedom Group confirms that they are indeed buying Para-USA.
Madison, NC — Freedom Group, Inc., (FGI) through a wholly owned subsidiary has announced today that it has finalized an asset purchase agreement to acquire certain assets of Para USA, INC., (Para).
Founded in 1985, Para has built a solid and enviable reputation for innovation, performance and reliability. Firearms enthusiasts, serious shooting competitors and law enforcement agencies choose with confidence from a wide and growing variety of Para pistols. Para’s revolutionary high capacity frame and light double action (LDATM) trigger systems, are part of the innovation that Para has brought to the world famous 1911 design.
“We welcome Para into the Freedom Group Family of Companies,” stated. E. Scott Blackwell, Chief Sales and Marketing Officer of Freedom Group Inc. “Para USA is a leader in handgun technology and their fine products exemplify quality, innovation and performance. Para is a perfect complement to our industry-leading family of brands, and our success in 2011 with the Remington R1 – 1911. We look forward to deploying both human and financial resources to continue to develop and supply current and future handguns for consumers and our channel partners. We also wish to thank all its employees for their continued dedication that has made Para a success.”
Para will continue day-to-day operations at their Pineville, NC based facility.
Steve at The Firearms Blog speculates that it won’t be too long before operations are moved from Pineville to either Ilion, NY or Mayfield, KY where Remington has their main plants. I think it might depend on whether the Para-USA facilities will allow greater production of 1911’s than the Ilion plant and at a lower cost per unit.
UPDATE: Jim Shepherd passed on this little tidbit in The Outdoor Wire about the acquisition.
Can’t say a lot beyond the releases about FGI’s intentions, but a note arrived late last night Para’s longtime PR/Media contact Kerby Smith. In it, Smith offered a little insight into how things are shaping up -at least from his perspective.
“The company that I worked for is no longer active,” Smith wrote, “and I am no longer employed…I assume that this e-mail will be shut down soon…It has been a great pleasure working with you for PARA USA, Inc.”
The Para acquisition means Freedom Group has acquired a running pistol company with proven products to plug into as many of the FGI company lines as it pleases.
Para, if allowed to continue, will have access to FGI’s extensive sales, marketing, dealer, and materials supply chain. About all that remains to be seen is how FGI will bring Para into the fold-and how they’ll position Para products. For now, the official line is that Para USA will continue its day-to-day operations from its relatively new headquarters in Pineville, North Carolina.
Steve at The Firearm Blog has more on this acquisition today as well. He mentions that two Para-USA employees were formerly senior level managers with Freedom Group.
Linoge at Walls of the City does an excellent job at dissecting and then eviscerating the “new” gun control group National Gun Victims Action Council. He looks at its leaders and then their overview of what they want to do.
As with all gun control groups, they will eventually tell you the truth about their aims. In this case, NGVAC says “Any sane gun law will lead to the government being able to take your guns away.”
Linoge calls this “a seven-inch, ivory-handled KA-BAR shoved between the third and fourth ribs of the dorsal side of “gun control” (which is a wonderful image in and of itself) and then continues:
Why? Simple: one of the favorite talking points of “gun control” extremists – especially when someone accurately observes that registration leads to confiscation – is that no modern “gun control” organization wants to take your guns away.
ORLY?
Well, then, thank you Elliot and thank you Andrew and thank you to the rest of the National Gun Victims Action Council for providing us such an easy counterpoint to that claim – after all, why would people so viciously obsessed with firearms and the demonization of them want the government to have the ability to take our firearms away if they did not actually want the government to do exactly that?
As one of Linoge’s commenters says that one would expect NGVAC “to at least obfuscate the message in a way that doesn’t offend anyone with two brain cells to rub together.”
Indeed.
Read Linoge’s whole post. It provides a logical antidote to the pablum put out by the gun prohibitionists.
For this week’s historical quote from Proclaiming Liberty, I decided to go modern with a quote from George Orwell.
The totalitarian states can do great things, but there is one thing they cannot do: they cannot give the factory-worker a rifle and tell him to take it home and keep it in his bedroom. That rifle hanging on the wall of the working-class flat or labourer’s cottage, is the symbol of democracy. It is our job to see it stays there.
Orwell, George. “Don’t Let Colonel Blimp Ruin the Home Guard.” The Complete Works of George Orwell, Ed. Peter Davison. Vol. 12. London: Random House, 1998. 362-365. Print.
Orwell was active in the British Home Guard serving as a sergeant in command of a section. The quote above is from an article he wrote in 1941 for the Evening Standard in which he complained about old World War I officers in the Home Guard who were more interested in marching than marksmanship.
This quote is found on page 52 of Proclaiming Liberty which is available from Amazon.com for $12.95. The Kindle edition is now available for $3.95.
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