First, Colt:

Colt Defense LLC is seeking capital to stave off an “expected default” next month as gunmakers suffer from lower defense spending and as consumers purchase fewer firearms.

The 178-year-old weapons maker said it’s “probable” it won’t comply with a loan agreement by Dec. 31 and is seeking an amendment to avoid default, according to a filing yesterday. Colt, which didn’t file its annual report on time because of accounting and liquidity issues, also said it’s uncertain it can make a $10.9 million bond interest payment Nov. 17.

Colt, whose credit rating was cut by Standard & Poor’s today to CCC-, has been struggling to service its $308 million of debt after losing U.S. contracts due to defense budget pressures and amid dissipating concern that the government will limit the ownership of firearms.

Next, Remington:

Another round of layoffs has hit Remington Arms’ Ilion facility, local officials said.

A total of 126 workers learned they were being let go Tuesday, according to information Assemblywoman Claudia Tenney, R-New Hartford, said she received from the local plant manager.

Company officials could not be reached for comment.

Tenney said she’d heard the layoffs may be as a result of the dwindling down of the Remington Model 700 rifle recall, which affected rifles with “X-Mark Pro” triggers manufactured between May 1, 2006, and April 9, 2014.

Not just any Remington plant mind you, but their crown jewel – Ilion.  This is a shame and you can visit the second article for highly opinionated missives about why this has happened.  But there are some simple things that other manufacturers can learn from these failures.

First, Colt jettisoned support for double action revolvers when they sold their soul and focused on the military contract for the M16/M4.  Now, if you want high quality revolvers you buy Smith & Wesson (and leave it alone) or Ruger and have a good gunsmith do a trigger job.  The good revolver builders have all died or retired from Colt.

They didn’t try to regain the civilian market, and stayed ensconced in a Northern state where union wages drove up the cost of literally everything.  As for Remington, their corporate intransigence caused them to refuse to admit the problems with the 700 triggers.  People died, sales went down, and then Remington finally had to settle out of court.

Remington has stayed ensconced in the North where unions drove wages up, and while opening plants elsewhere (like Alabama) will help, this may be too little too late.  An influx of cash from military sales will help, but in the end 443 rifles – even expensive rifles – will only go so far.

Mossberg, Kimber, Rock River Arms, Smith & Wesson and other manufacturers had better be watching these developments with Colt and Remington.

Grab your britches.  You won’t believe this one.

NY Daily News:

A SWAT team sent to handle an alleged neighborhood dispute over dog waste ended up killing the dog, and igniting a firestorm of criticism against the local police force.

In dramatic video capturing the end of Saturday’s hours-long standoff involving Racine, Wisc. police, a small dog is seen being shot dead by a line of approaching officers moments after set loose.

Neighbor Kim Polk described the shooting as the result of one irate resident refusing to pick up after his dog when confronted by her, and then violently threatening to kill her own pooch.

It was that threat, first with a bow and arrow and then with a machete, that she said led to her family calling 911 and a SWAT team approaching the man’s home.

“When he finally decided to come out of the house he was irate upset and was telling the cops to get off his property that he was going to harm them, he was going to shoot at the cops,” Polk told Fox6Now.

Racine Police Chief Art Howell, in a statement released Sunday, said the unidentified dog owner threatened to kill the officers with an armor-piercing crossbow and to release his dog.

“After several hours of dialogue with crisis negotiators, the barricaded subject ultimately made good on his threat to introduce the dog into the active standoff,” said Howell in the statement obtained by Racine County Eye.

“After the dog was released, the dynamics of this encounter changed. Officers, who for over three hours were focused on peacefully resolving this crisis through dialogue, were now forced to deal with the distraction and unpredictability of having the subject’s dog moving through the scene of this active encounter at a critical time,” Howell continued.

The homeowner behind the dog’s release was reportedly arrested but his name and charges have not been immediately released. A request for comment from the police department was not returned.

Armor piercing cross bow.  The dynamics changed.  Unpredictability of having the subject’s dog moving.  It all sounds so serious according to the police chief.  Now take a hard look at the subject dog.

What do you think the dog weighs?  Five pounds, perhaps?  Sure enough, the owner sounds like a loser, as much of a loser as the cops.  But it gets even better.  The cops shot the puppy while it was running away from the cops.  Don’t believe it?  Watch the video.

And the police chief is defending the actions of his force.  I have previously called cops who are frightened of farm animals (and who are afraid to be trained on them) pussies.  I stand by that charge.  But we’ve reached a point where cops are shooting animals for the pure love of violence, not much different than Latino gang members who behead for the fun of it.

Managing Gun Recoil:

I not so fondly remember the kick I got out of my dad’s .20 gauge shotgun. I was just 4 years old and my macho image faded once I pulled the trigger on that old Stevens model 311. It backed me up several steps, but I held onto the gun.

Recoil comes from launching a projectile at speeds up to 3,500 feet per second in a rifle, or a shot charge of 1 and 1/2 ounces at speeds up to 1,600 feet per second. Most of the time this creates flinching, shooting with both eyes closed or jerking the trigger. All three hurt accuracy.

There are many remedies that manufacturers claim will reduce recoil. Like politicians, there is no way one can reduce recoil. When a heavy force is propelled forward, the result is the force returns reward. It is one of the oldest laws of physics.

Some companies respond by gas-operated firearms. Others claim inertia will reduce it. Still others manufacture recoil pads that do help.

Many professional shooters end up with detached retinas, which need surgery. The constant pounding shooters experience can and will take its toll. I can well remember sighting in my 12-gauge slug gun. When placed on sand bags that gun kicked really hard. I had to really concentrate to avoid flinching. As a result I dreaded checking zero on that gun before every deer season.

As I mentioned earlier, recoil pads do help. They don’t reduce recoil but they tend to cushion it. Extra weight in a firearm also helps. In other words if you are going to purchase a heavy caliber, buy the one that is the heaviest. Make sure a good recoil pad is installed. A good pad will allow the force to be distributed over a larger area. Some firearms have compensators which help direct some of the force downward or to the side. Still others build stocks that flex and tend to absorb some of the forces in that manner.

Okay.  It’s a little more complex than that.  Like all shooters, I’ve shot 12 gauge shotguns until my shoulder was black and blue, or high powered rifles until my shoulder hurt.  There is nothing manly about recoil.  It is the enemy of good shooting, no matter how experienced or good you think you are.

And even most articles on buffer springs talk about them reducing “perceived recoil.”  And again, it’s more complicated than that.

For purposes of simplicity, let’s exclude muzzle brakes from the discussion because they redirect force to compensate for the recoil.  It’s true that the action of the detonation and propelling the projectile out the muzzle will cause a reaction equal to the force propelling the projectile.

Without any machinery to absorb the recoil, it is directed immediately in a sharp movement of the gun.  But a gun is a system, with moving parts like the bolt in an AR-15.  That bolt also causes movement of the gun, but slower than if it weren’t in place.

Another way of saying it is that – and I hate to get wonkish and technical – if you were to use calculus and integrate the area under the curve of force versus time for a system that has a buffer spring versus one that doesn’t, the area would be the same, but the apex of the curve (maxima) would be reduced for the system with a buffer spring.  The maxima would be higher for the system which does not, although the recoil would be complete before the gun with the spring.  It’s a matter of dampening the force over time (or flattening the curve) while recognizing that the force cannot be made to go away (the area under the two curves is the same) because God created physics and physics doesn’t change.

I’m sorry for the wonkish discussion.  I thought it was relevant to the life of a shooter.

From Wikimedia Commons:

Standing sideways, saucer and cup style.  What on earth are they teaching Navy recruits?

KVOA.com:

The News 4 Tucson Investigators have uncovered that some U.S. Border Patrol agents have lost a key part of their arsenal. And that has agents who patrol along the border here, extremely worried.

We learned that U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s Offices of Border Patrol and Training and Development are inspecting the quality of agents’ M4 carbines throughout Border Patrol sectors nationwide. But agents tell us, some of those M4s have not been replaced. And, we’ve learned, agents are required to share rifles amongst each other.

“There’s a lot of agents that are pretty upset over it,” said Art del Cueto, president of the Border Patrol’s Tucson Sector union. “We know it’s a dangerous job. We know what we signed on for but we want to have as much of the equipment as we need to perform the job.”

The M4 carbine is used by the U.S. military and by Border Patrol agents. It’s even used by the Border Patrol’s tactical unit, BORTAC. Agent Brian Terry was carrying the M4 when he was shot and killed in December 2010.

Del Cueto tells us that because some of those M4s have not been replaced, agents are pooling their weapons, which makes it difficult to personalize the settings on a rifle, such as the sights.

“The problem is they are now pool guns so what happens is instead of having their individual ones they have sighted in they’re having to use a pool weapon that you don’t know who used it before you,” del Cueto said.

Customs and Border Protection released a statement to the News 4 Tucson Investigators last week, stating: “CBP’s Offices of Border Patrol and Training and Development are jointly inspecting the serviceability of M4 carbines throughout Border Patrol Sectors nationwide. Some of (the) inspected M4 carbines were deemed unserviceable and removed from inventory to alleviate safety concerns. Inspections will continue to ensure the unserviceable M4 carbines are repaired or replaced for reintroduction into the field. No further information is available at this time.”

[ … ]

Prather believes removing some of the rifles maybe politically motivated. He says he was told that many of these guns are being removed for issues that are easily repaired like the firing pin and bolt.

He broke down a M4 as he spoke.

“This weapon is designed to be able to be in a battle situation, changed out rather quickly even so fast that modern weapons have areas to hold spare bolts,” he said.

That makes him suspicious that the agency could be disarming its agents.

The U.S. government has enough surplus weapons that every local yokel Sheriff’s department gets machine guns and armored vehicles on your tax dollars.  But the Border Patrol agents are getting their rifles confiscated by the Border Patrol.  It sort of makes you think that the administration is trying to cause an invasion, no?

So it’s worse that sending weapons South of the border to criminal cartels in an attempt to shore up the case for a demand letter to FFLs.  Now we want to ensure that agents who want to stop the criminals aren’t armed.  There’s your administration and your tax dollars at work.

From Handguns Magazine, here is what I consider to be a very good video on low light defensive pistol tactics.  It’s well worth the time to study the advice and watch the demonstrations.

WGRZ.com:

BUFFALO, NY – Buffalo Police say they’re determined to get more guns off the streets and now they’re checking to see whether pistol permit holders have passed away and what happened to their gun or guns.

During a press conference last week regarding weapons brought in illegally from Pennsylvania, police officials told reporters their biggest problem with weapons in crimes seems to involve guns that are stolen in burglaries from homes.

They feel that, in some cases, families are holding on to weapons even after the person who bought them originally has died.

So now they’re actually looking for those situations.

“We recently started a program where we’re cross referencing all the pistol permit holders with the death records, and we’re sending people out to collect the guns whenever possible so that they don’t end up in the wrong hands,” said Police Commissioner Daniel Derrenda.” Because at times they lay out there and the family is not aware of them and they end up just out on the street.”

Some police agencies give families of the deceased permit holder 15 days to sell or transfer a weapon or weapons held with the permit to another permit holder or a dealer.

Forget passing down heirlooms to family members, or bequeathing cherished things to those you love.  The state has decided to send the Gestapo to collect your stuff.  Instead of calling it “stealing private property,” which would land you or me in prison, they do it all under the rubric of protecting the safety of the public.  That’s always the stated reason, no?

The Bible has strong words for those who would mistreat and take advantage of widows and orphans.  Men like this are the lowest of the low, and God will judge them for their actions.  Those men have no right to weeping and gnashing of teeth on judgment day – they have been warned concerning their sin.

New York Post:

Nine rookie Port Authority cops were fired for “running wild” at a drunken graduation party — where some of them grabbed a woman’s butt, disobeyed their bosses and arrogantly flashed their badges to get out of trouble, sources said on Friday.

Dozens of freshly minted PA Police officers flocked to Texas Arizona Bar and Grill in Hoboken after a Police Academy graduation ceremony at Dunn Sport Center in Elizabeth on Aug. 22, Port Authority police sources told The Post.

But the celebration turned into a booze-soaked mess when some of the newbie officers got drunk, hopped behind the bar and began pouring their own beers while still in uniform, the sources said.

Other officers trashed the bathroom and touched a female’s behind “inappropriately,” the sources said.

When a bartender asked them to calm down, the cocky rookies flashed their badges and explained they were allowed to act like jerks because they were cops, the sources said.

The bartender called Hoboken police, but the revelers were so out of control, they had to summon PA cops to the scene, sources said.

Even then, the rowdies ignored their supervisors and acted “drunkenly defiant,” according to a PA source.

“They were running wild…They brought shame and disrespect to the department,” the source said.

Not long after, investigators demanded some of the officers hand over their cellphones, some of which had been used to record the post-graduation shenanigans. Nine of the officers, some of them women, have since been fired.

Three supervisors — including a lieutenant who was also drunk — also face disciplinary action following the drunken celebration. Three other rookie officers were also suspended without pay for 30 days, the sources said.

[ … ]

“Let the message be clear…police officers will be held to a high standard of conduct befitting their roles,” Port Authority Chairman John Degnan said.

Yea, they’ll be held to a high standard, except for those cops who were suspended without pay, and those officers who, God surely knows, shouldn’t have to lose a great career serving and protecting the public just because of public drunkenness and grabbing a little ass from unsuspecting patrons every now and again.

Laws are for little people.

David Codrea:

“The law did prohibit Jews and other persecuted classes from owning guns, but this should not be an indictment of gun control in general,” Alexander Seitz-Wald wrote unbelievably in a Salon hit piece, as if that made it all OK then, because non-threats to the regime could still have them. And it wasn’t just guns forbidden to “persecuted classes,” as a JPFO analysis of the November 11, 1938 (the day after Kristallnacht) law reveals.

[ … ]

To those who would “whistle past the graveyard of history,” deny that brutal tyranny could ever happen here, and call talk of armed defense against it unsupportable and even treasonous, where in history is any civilization guaranteed stasis? Has not despotism and mass destruction plagued every civilization that preceded ours? Is it not, in fact, still commonplace throughout the globe? By what suspension of reality, by what denial of the observable and the probable, by what art, device or magic are we sheltered few immune from catastrophe?

Yea, I’ve discussed the silly notion too that gun control wasn’t part of the stock and trade of the Nazis since they allowed their supporters to have guns.  The salient point is that gun control isn’t gun control if it forbids every one from having guns.  Someone always has guns.  The point of gun control is to make sure that only certain people have guns.  You understand that, don’t you?  By arguing like they do, the collectivists fall into our trap and stipulate to our definitions.

As for the final paragraph I’ve lifted, this is David at his best, waxing philosophical.  This prose is just that good.  If you don’t read anything else today, go over to David’s place and read this piece.

Kurt Hofmann:

In other words, the heat and pressure that previously had to be contained by the plastic barrel and breech of a printed gun is now instead contained in a thick steel cartridge case. Moreover, although, as the article acknowledges, the cartridge cases require some painstaking machining, they can be used over and over. Crumling is not manufacturing ammunition for sale, as doing so would require a federal license, although he has said that he would be willing to obtain such a license if there is sufficient interest in the rounds. If he sold only the steel cases themselves, without loading them with a bullet, the propellant powder, and the primer, the license would be unnecessary.

I had wondered what they were going to do about the high chamber pressures for such a firearm (approaching 55,000 – 60,000 psi).  Now you know.  Kurt is doing a great job of watching this issue.  I sense frustration with the ATF, like there is someone or something somewhere they don’t control.

Via Mike Vanderboegh:

Or in other words, the federal government stole the property of a peaceable and law abiding businessman.

The Blade: