Archive for the 'Firearms' Category

CNBC:

A landmark class action settlement involving some of Remington’s most popular firearms has officially gone into effect, after critics of the agreement declined to take their case to the Supreme Court by a Tuesday deadline, according to an attorney for the plaintiffs.

That means that millions of owners of the iconic Model 700 rifle — and a dozen Remington models with similar designs — have 18 months to file claims for a free replacement of their guns’ allegedly defective triggers. The guns have been linked in lawsuits to dozens of accidental deaths and hundreds of serious injuries, though Remington still maintains they are safe.

“Anyone with one of these guns should take advantage of this opportunity to get the trigger fixed,” said Eric D. Holland, a lead attorney for the plaintiffs in the class action case. “I’ve encouraged everyone to put these guns away. Don’t use these guns. Make the claims now.”

A special website has been set up with information on how to file a claim, and there is also a toll-free hotline, 1-800-876-5940.

[ … ]

The effective date of the settlement comes almost exactly eight years after CNBC first explored allegations that Remington engaged in a decades-long coverup of a defect that allows the guns to fire without the trigger being pulled.

Remington said the guns have been safe since they were first produced. But the 2010 documentary “Remington Under Fire: A CNBC Investigation” uncovered internal company documents showing engineers warning of a “theoretical unsafe condition” even before the trigger design went on the market in 1948. The company repeatedly decided against modifying the design or launching a recall, even as accidents and customer complaints continued to pile up.

It’s more complicated than simply the rifle firing when the trigger isn’t pulled.  The rifle would discharge at times when the cartridge was sent into battery, and Remington engineers knew it and had data from their own testing that showed it.

How sad.  After all of the pain, suffering, money, lawyers and loss of reputation to the company, this is apparently the end.  All of it could have been avoided by simply doing a recall when the engineers found it.  The world is almost always a worse place when people don’t listen to engineers.

Prior: Remington 700

News from the Northwest:

HELENA, Mont. (AP) – A 48–year–old physician died when his rifle discharged after he returned to Helena from a hunting trip.

Lewis and Clark County Coroner Bryan Backeberg tells the Independent Record that Eugene “Buzz” Walton was retrieving the rifle from the back of a pickup truck in the old Kmart parking lot at about 12:30 p.m. Sunday when it went off.

Lt. Brett Petty says officers responded to a report of shots fired, found Walton outside the truck and began giving him medical aid. He died shortly after being transported to the hospital.

Folks, unload your guns after a trip to the range or hunting.  We want our readers around for the long haul.  I’m sure the gun didn’t “go off” by accident or spuriously.  No offense is intended.  I feel sure he grabbed the trigger.

News from Florida:

A group of open carry gun enthusiasts had a well-armed visit to Miami Beach on Saturday.

The group calling itself “Florida Carry” caused a disturbance when they showed up on the South Pointe Park Pier in June.

At that time, six members of the group startled fishermen and visitors, some of whom notified police.

Officers temporarily detained and disarmed the group, but determined that they were within their rights to carry weapons.

This time, the group announced it’s intention to show up at the pier on a Facebook page, and police were ready and accommodating.

The group walked to the pier and proceeded to fish, gathering several double-takes from other fishermen and tourists.

Open Carry Advocate Steven Merrette said, “This is our statement to come out here and try and educate not only the law enforcement officers but the general public as well. We are not the problem. We’re out here peacefully fishing, we’ve got our wives, our kids with us, we’re out here having a good time, nobody’s causing any problems.”

I support their efforts.  As I’ve said before, the shame must end.  I agree wholeheartedly with the notion of open carry to prove a point.  Other than that, we learn absolutely nothing interesting or actionable from this stupid report, except that the police are criminals.

It’s legal to open carry while fishing, and this wasn’t a Terry stop.  There was no suspicion of a crime, and the police didn’t need to detain the men and verify that they were within their rights.  Here’s a scoop, cops.  There is no law against it, so they were within their rights, just as much as walking down the street is within my rights, and you have no right to detain me for walking down the street.

As for disarming the men, I’ve pointed out before that this is the stupidest, most ridiculous, most unsafe act you can take.  Do … not .. touch .. another … man’s .. weapon.  If you do that, you are an imbecile, and your procedures are faulty.

So here’s a suggestion for the write of this silly article (” … and police were ready and accommodating”).  Find out and report for us what right the police had to detain and disarm the men, and give us the court precedents that support such action, if you can find any.  More to the point.  Give us court precedents that demonstrate that the police can detain you for no reason whatsoever?

Here’s another idea.  Give us the data on whether blood really runs in the streets like the wild, wild west in open carry states.  Or not.  Hey, “journalist.”  Do you even know how many states are open carry states?

Prior: Miami Beach Police Draw Down On, Detain, Disarm, And Throw Around Lawful Open Carriers

It’s not a trick question.  Nothing.

This summer, bassoonist Eric Barga drove to Covenant Presbyterian Church in Springfield, Ohio, after a day of teaching at his old school, Kenton Ride High School.

Eric was half an hour early for bell choir practice. To pass the time, he pulled out his custom-made Fox 610 red maple bassoon, sat down on the boot of his car and started playing some scales.

Seven minutes later, Springfield police received a 911 call, saying there was a white male in a jacket and jeans sitting on the back of his car by the church holding what looked like a long rifle.

Five minutes later, two police vehicles arrived on the scene.

“They didn’t immediately approach me,” Eric told Springfield News. “I saw a big police van roll up really slowly. I wasn’t concerned that I was doing anything wrong.”

Eric wondered if someone had made a noise complaint about him. The idea that someone might have mistaken his bassoon for a rifle, he said: “never crossed my mind”.

“In the right kind of light, it looks like a bazooka,” he said, “but I don’t think it was the right kind of light.”

The officers approached him.

“At this point, I realise they’re confronting me. I put on a little dopey smile and said, ‘Did somebody call the cops on me?’

“I didn’t really feel threatened. “I don’t get nervous. Years of music school (performance) beats that out of you.”

By the time the officers got to Eric’s car, they had realised the gun was in fact a musical instrument and were laughing. They even asked Eric: “Is that a bassoon or an oboe?”

Eric treated the officers to a bit of Mozart’s Bassoon Concerto before they left him to his practice.

So has America reached the stage of being worthy of ridicule?  I’m asking.  Readers can weigh in.  I know the country has in the main succumbed to the obscene, but now it looks like the three stooges.  Because I think we’re there.  We’ve finally arrived.

Here are a few observations.

First, he’s right, music performance school beats the nerves out of you.  My son, Joseph, is Concertmaster of the Austin Lyric Opera and a member of the Austin Symphony, has appeared on Austin City Limits (twice), has played with Peter Gabriel, recorded for Christopher Cross and many others.  You have to lasso your nerves to do that sort of thing.  He handled it like a champion.

Second, Americans need to take music lessons.  All Americans.  And no, rap and modern teen pop doesn’t count.  To mistake a Bassoon for a long gun is a sign that someone needs to learn the musical instruments.  You know those piano lessons your mom wanted you to take as a child, and that caused rebellion in the ranks?  Yea, those lessons.  They did you good, and you should have finished them.  And you should learn to play a string or wind instrument too.  It creates an appreciation for art, for the good things in life, for the beautiful, the exquisite, and the majestic.  It also constructs the neural networks to understand math.  Music students have an easier time with math.  My son has his own studio, and many of his students are Asian.  It’s virtually expected that Asian kids will learn music.  American kids are learning teen pop and rap.

Third, Americans need to learn firearms.  A Bassoon doesn’t look like a long gun.  A long gun doesn’t look like a Bassoon.  If I have to say any more about that, it’s time wasted on imbeciles.  And knowing how to handle firearms and being ready to use them is the surest, quickest way to handle active shooter threats, as opposed to hiding under desks and throwing potted plants as suggested by the Department of Homeland Security.

I mean, how cool would it be to do math, play a musical instrument and handle an active shooter in the same day?  You would certainly go to bed that night confident in your station in life.

News from Arkansas:

BERRYVILLE — High-end gun-maker Nighthawk Custom is expanding, adding 4,000 square feet to its work space to improve efficiency and productivity.

The new building, which sits near the company’s current facility, will house about 20 Nighthawk gunsmiths and about 10 support employees. Nelson Davis, chief operating officer for Nighthawk, said the new space will streamline the process of making custom firearms and is the gun-maker’s first stab at lean manufacturing, a system to minimize waste without affecting productivity.

The cost of the expansion is in the neighborhood of $750,000. The company plans to move workers into the new space in November with the area fully integrated by the end of the year. The company received a $125,000 Community Development Block Grant through the Arkansas Economic Development Commission for new equipment that will be part of the expansion.

Nighthawk employs about 55 workers and has been building 1911-style pistols and other custom firearms since 2004. The company offers several pistol models that are further customized based on customer specifications with a starting price tag of about $3,500.

Davis said the current layout isolates gunsmiths and requires them to go through a maze of hallways and offices as they build pistols, which adds for wasted time, miscommunication and general inefficiency. The new facility built with the input of Nighthawk’s employees, will have an open floor plan with the gunsmiths working in close proximity to one another and with support staff close at hand.

So apparently they’ve done a time-motion study and figured out that they can do more if they redesign the workspace.  Good.  I don’t have a Nighthawk 1911 (because they haven’t sent me one for free to review), but I do hope they are able to do this without reliance upon the large banks that can call in notes at any time, or going public with stock or other ownership.

I hope they don’t make the same mistake some of the large gun manufacturers have made.

This is a pregnant bit of video and requires some unpacking to do it justice.  Many things were said, and left unsaid.

I will not ally myself with Antifa, for they run contrary to everything I believe, want to change America for the worse, and want to use firearms to thwart my liberties.  I will not arm my enemy or teach him to fight.

I also will not, for example, support unlimited immigration since I know that in the main, Latinos and Hispanics vote progressive and favor draconian gun controls.  I will not change my mind because of “the sky is falling” panic attacks about possibly losing my rights if I don’t make friends with those who would oppose me.  Peace at any cost isn’t peace, it’s just temporary cessation of conflict, and the necessity of compromise means you lost.

As for the LGBT community, if I meet a member of that community who persuades me that she or he will never vote or work in any way, shape or form, to thwart my rights – and that includes the right not to bake them a cake – I won’t oppose their RKBA.  But I don’t join clubs.  I’m not entirely sure what Larry means when he implies that I should welcome someone into my community.  My community is where I live, and those with whom I run.

I am not fearful over my potential loss of rights.  My rights come from God, and God alone.  The Almighty has issued the decrees from which flow the right and duty of self defense, defense of home and hearth, and the amelioration of tyranny.  Loss of recognition of the second amendment, to which I’ve repeatedly referred as a covenant with blessings for obedience and curses for breakage, doesn’t mean I lose a right.  It means war has been declared and sides are forming.

I will always attempt to persuade those who do not see things my way to change their minds.  There is one of the reasons I write.  In that persuasion, I will include the RKBA, personal morality, philosophy, and theology.  I can walk and chew gum at the same time, and I will not compromise the very elements of my world and life view which I believe undergird and give foundation to the RKBA.  In other words, siding with an ostensibly opposing community because they might be able to be persuaded on one element, only to jettison that agreement when times get tough because it fundamentally differs from the balance of their world view, isn’t wise or effective.  I see all of life as connected, a function of our noetic structure that includes judgments on the truth value of propositions, theories of knowledge, beliefs in the foundations of social order, how we determine right and wrong, and ultimacy.

Only the Christian world and life view can birth, support and sustain liberty on a long term basis.  American is where it is now, collapsing under the weight of the trivial, obscene and ridiculous, because of this truth.  Trying to agree on the RKBA when the foundation is falling is like throwing a cup of water on a structure that has almost burned to the ground.

Finally, Larry’s analogy is utter nonsense.  It doesn’t surprise me at all that the old guard NRA believed that civilians shouldn’t be unholstering pistols under any condition.  That Ken Hackathorn tried to introduce the NRA to IPSC and the NRA refused only demonstrates my points.  The NRA refused to acknowledge God-given rights.  God will not bless them long term.  They will eventually go down in history as brief a footnote.  Mr. Vickers has his analogy exactly backwards.

I shouldn’t change my world and life view or compromise with people who would eventually undermine my liberties.  We’re not like the NRA in his analogy, we’re like Hackathorn.  The IPSC won, as will we.  God is on our side, and I’m not worried.  I will not be found among the hand-wringers, clinging to whatever little morsel of agreement I can get wherever I can find it.

Well, more than mud.  Sand, dirt, water and mud.

It did well.  I knew it would before I watched the video.  It’s a fine gun, based on my experience.  Tim Harmsen does a good job with the video.

From WiscoDave, this:

Bloomberg reports that the $40 million is on top of $431 million Wells Fargo has issued to gun manufacturers since the December 14, 2012, Sandy Hook attack. This means Wells Fargo is not only bucking the corporate gun control trend in 2018 but has also withstood the firearm divestiture campaign that launched following Sandy Hook.

On April 15, 2018, Breitbart News reported that Wells Fargo stemmed the tide of the push for new financial restrictions on gun makers and sellers by stressing that it is not a bank’s job to set U.S. gun policy.  Reuters quoted Wells Fargo chief financial officer John Shrewsberry saying, “The best way to make progress on these issues is through the political and legislative process. In the meantime, Wells Fargo is engaging our customers that legally manufacture firearms and other stakeholders on what we can do together to promote better gun safety in our communities.”

Wells Fargo’s refusal to place new restrictions on gun manufacturers came shortly after Citigroup and Bank of America caved to the gun control push. On March 23, 2018, Breitbart News reported that Citibank issued new requirements whereby customers who own gun stores must stop selling long guns to anyone under the age of 21 and to quit selling “high-capacity” magazines as well. And Bank of America made clear they will no longer loan money to manufacturers that make “military-style firearms.”

But even though Wells Fargo hasn’t buckled yet, things are not so nice in banking land.

APOPKA, Fla. – Representatives from Fifth Third Bank visited Spike’s Tactical, a Florida-based firearm manufacturer, last Tuesday to inform them that the bank was discreetly planning to exit the banking sector for gun-related businesses.

According to Spike’s Tactical co-owner Angela Register, the bank representative informed her and their chief financial officer that their business line of credit would not be renewed and encouraged them to find a new bank to hold their accounts, even mentioning that their commercial mortgage should be transferred or it could potentially be called early.

The war continues, and all is proceeding just as I had foreseen.  Actually, it’s all proceeding just as the controllers said it would.  I just told you what the controllers said.  At some point, they’re going to come directly after owners as well.  Their intention is to drive manufacturers out of business from being unable to make payroll and enable their lines of supply and logistics.

The large manufacturers will have a difficult time of it, especially with the controllers buying up stock.  The small manufacturers, i.e., those who aren’t subject to public stockholders and whose employees own the company, and who enable their lines of logistics without the help of the large banks, will flourish.

I suspect Spike’s Tactical will come out of this okay if they can find a small bank who will take the mortgage.