The Steyr AUG is the most iconic bullpup of the end of the cold-war. It’s futuristic looks sparked the imagination. It made its presence known across movies, TV, games and inspired a military and sci-fi fiction.
The rifle itself is probably the most or second most successful military bullpup. The Tavor/X95 is popular and well regarded as a service rifle however the AUG’s first iteration has about 23 years more time in the field. With Austria (the AUG home nation), Australia, Ireland, and New Zealand all adopting variants.
Several improvements made it into the designs, with Australia’s EF88 and F90 variants probably being the furthest advanced. Ditching some of the cold war features like quick change barrels, bullpup light machine guns/automatic rifles have never had the utility of the carbine, let a great deal of weight be saved while adding modern mounting surfaces.
Bullpups are still niche. The design came about as a mobility consideration for APC mobile troops in the European theater. Several modern militaries still use them, and the AUG is popular among those that do.
Two long-awaited reports were released to the public this week that could have helped further the dialog regarding guns in the Commonwealth of Virginia: The Virginia State Crime Commission report regarding Mass Killings and Gun Violence, and the Hillard Heintze Independent Review of the May 2019 Virginia Beach killings.
For those who haven’t been following events in Virginia, the killings in a Virginia Beach City government building in May 2019 ostensibly led the Governor, at that time embroiled in scandal, to call for a special session of the General Assembly to consider a raft of “gun violence” bills.
Although the Governor conceded that none of the bills would have stopped the Virginia Beach killer, he and Democrat legislators marched in lockstep with the Bloomberg-sponsored confiscation agenda, asserting that reducing access to lethal firearms was urgently needed.
Rather than hastily vote on the bills, the then Republican-controlled Assembly moved consideration of the bills to the Crime Commission. The Commission took two days of testimony and reviewed thousands of emails before issuing its report earlier this week.
It was no surprise that Crime Commission’s report concluded with the equivocation that “inconclusive evidence exists to develop recommendations.” The Assembly then flipped from Republican control (generally pro-Second Amendment) to Bloomberg-financed Democrats (“we support the Second Amendment but . . .”), the Commission’s recommendations were neither binding nor likely to carry weight in future deliberations.
Nonetheless the report did provide insight into how the legislators think about crime or, in Virginia’s case actually, the relative lack thereof. The report in part read:
“Our Commonwealth is one of the safest states in the nation. Our firearm mortality rate is below the national average. We have the fourth lowest violent crime rate in the country. And as Governor Northam proudly pointed out in a January press release, Virginia also has the lowest recidivism rate in the country. We have achieved this because of our brave men and women in law enforcement, a strong criminal justice system, and by enacting sound, evidenced-based public policy through thoughtful legislative dialogue.”
Note the absence of any reference to concealed carry permit holders. Although the points referenced are valid, how can over 600,000 responsible, armed citizens get overlooked? Was that a deliberate omission, or did the Crime Commission not comprehend testimony by Amy Swearer (of the Heritage Foundation) about the vast numbers of defensive gun usages?
In some ways, the review of the Virginia Beach killings was even more perplexing. The section titled “Weapons” obfuscated the legality of guns in the building where the killings occurred. It acknowledged that employees were prohibited from carrying guns even if they could lawfully carry elsewhere, but omitted the fact that citizens and visitors were not prohibited from carrying guns. In other words, it was a “gun-free zone” for employees only. That section of the report continued:
“The attacker left Building 2 and retrieved his weapons from his parked vehicle on government property. He then shot two people in the parking lot and reentered the building and shot many of his coworkers. The City of Virginia Beach has a firearms policy that prohibits the possession of firearms in the workplace. The attacker’s actions are one reason why such policies exist, as they are intended to reduce the risk of such attacks. Some employees suggested, however, that had they been allowed to have weapons in the workplace, they might have been able to limit the harm done in the attack.
“Many employers ban weapons in the workplace as a risk factor for violence. Some employers and employees believe that the availability of armed defense would limit such attacks. Notwithstanding this difference of opinion, it is a known correlation that most of the mass casualties in the workplace are caused by firearms.”
I cannot help but infer bias against armed employees in the preceding passages. Not only is there excellent data that supports the ability of armed citizens in stopping active shooter attacks, this analysis doesn’t consider the deterrence effect of people carrying guns. Would the killer have attempted his attack if he thought his potential victims might be armed? Again, research supports the finding that criminals fear armed potential victims more than law enforcement officers.
Finally, it isn’t linguistic quibbling to point out that casualties aren’t caused by firearms: casualties are caused by human beings. The report’s usage confirms its hoplophobic bias.
Bias against lawfully, responsibly armed citizens is even more difficult to understand given the report’s conclusion that the killer’s actions leading up to the murders would not have led to identifying him as at risk of committing such an atrocity. Even the suggested human resource changes instituting an elaborate threat assessment team and protocol would not have mattered.
Although the rapid response of the police was commendable, the attack still went on for over thirty minutes. Given that concealed carry permit holders are less likely to commit offenses than law enforcement officers, it is wrong to support that “gun free zone for employees” policy.
At some point, reality needs to be acknowledged: despite everyone’s best efforts, evil occurs. Gun free zones needlessly endanger the lives of those who have no choice but to frequent them.
Although some of the report’s recommendations would be prudent additional safeguards, we would all be safer recognizing that responsible, lawfully armed citizens have the God-given right to defend themselves. We ignore this at our peril.
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–Dennis Petrocelli, MD is a clinical and forensic psychiatrist who has practiced for nearly 20 years in Virginia. He took up shooting in 2019 for mind-body training and self-defense, and is joining the fight for Virginians’ gun rights.
I had the most fantastic experience the other weekend. I was hunting with a group of women on a ranch in Texas. The reason we were all together in that location was because of a new program created by the women who brought you Babes With Bullets. It’s called LACE, for Ladies Adventure Camp Experience.
LACE was started a couple years ago by Deb Ferns and Kay Miculek. Having had so much success in training women to safely handle handguns over the past 15 years in Babes With Bullets Camp, they decided to try using a similar format for introducing women to hunting.
Providing loaner rifles, ammo, training, and guiding in supportive and welcoming settings, LACE camp aims to provide a positive hunting experience for novice women hunters. They even offered some loaner camo!
The location for this adventure was the lovely Hawks Double Mountain Ranch in West Texas, which has opened its gates to serve the public only relatively recently.
HDMR is a high fence ranch of about 25,000 acres or about 40 square miles. That’s a lot of territory for game to hang out in.
Car caravan to the ranch gate.
HDMR offers hunts for a variety of native and exotic animals: Red deer, Scimitar Oryx, Aoudad, Bison, Native Whitetail Deer, Predators, Hogs, Gemsbok and Turkey. For long range shooting enthusiasts, HDMR offers target shooting opportunities from 100 to 4000 yards. And there’s even a skeet field.
Yep, those are bison.
Our group of eight ladies (and a couple husbands) were there to hunt cull doe and hogs. The ranch needs to harvest over 200 doe a year just to keep the population under control. Hogs are invasive and also need to be controlled. Doe meat tastes just as good as trophy buck, and pork chops are always a plus, so this hunt wasn’t entirely for “sport” – it also helped with necessary herd management and provided meat for the lady hunters.
Those two purposes came together nicely to offer our ladies’ group ample opportunity for a novice or near-novice hunting experience, under the guidance and assistance of the ranch.
To back up a little I need to point out that I’m not technically a “new” hunter. I’ve been deer hunting on family property several times in the past 8 years or so – both with family and by myself – and even a handful of times on state land with a crossbow. I’ve just never been successful. So, I’m not really “new”, but I’m still a novice. My last day of last year’s season was the closest I’ve ever come. And although it was a thrilling experience, I still had an empty freezer.
This year I decided to look for something different. Enter LACE camp.
All of the staff of both LACE and HDMR were welcoming, gracious, helpful, and accommodating. Overnight arrangements on the ranch ran the gamut from bunkhouse style to private cabins. Family style meals prepared by the folks at HDMR were delicious. My game meat palate expanded even further as we were served bison and oryx – both of which were wonderfully tasty!
A pre-dawn look around the lodge.
My hunt guides over the course of two mornings and two afternoons were Justin and Rachel. Although my guides were female, the male guides were just as welcoming, supportive, and helpful as the women. So no worries in that department for any woman considering a hunt like this.
Togetherness in the Jeep on the first morning.
The game blinds that I was in were all elevated and enclosed. That helped with comfort in the wind, in addition to controlling scent and sound. I had a bit of a hacking cough, so the sound control was especially helpful. I’m afraid of heights, and thus have not used a tree stand at home. I can see now though how helpful the elevation is. These blinds didn’t make me nervous except for the few seconds when I was actually on the ladder. The rest of the time they were very comfortable and functional.
Our blind shadow in the rising sun.A view from a different blindAnother view out a blind window in the cold.
I’ve never spent any time in Texas before – besides changing planes at DFW, that is. One of the things that struck me about this ranch is the difference in terrain from what I’m used to at home. There was mesquite and cactus instead of the oak, poplar, and black cherry I’m used to. Also, because of the size and remoteness of the ranch, it was soooo quiet there. It was glorious! At home, even when I’m alone in the woods I can still hear trucks on the interstate a few miles away. This ranch though, was auditory heaven. I can also categorically agree that, “The stars at night are big and bright deep in the heart of Texas”.
I was definitely not in the east anymore!
The guides who worked with me were so much fun and very informative. Even if I hadn’t been planning to do any shooting, the experience of glassing the game from the blind was interesting and exciting. One evening we watched 4 bucks, 2 immature doe, another larger doe, and six turkeys all show up in the same two-hour time frame.
Texas turkeys on the march.
Although there are feeders and blinds on this ranch, it is STILL a hunt. With 25,000 acres, the game can be almost anywhere (or not) on any given day. As illustration, although the place is overrun with hogs and thus why they need to be controlled, I only saw two hogs during the two mornings and two afternoons that I was in a blind. I took the first one, and I’m glad I did, because the second one was big and ugly and would not likely have provided tasty meat. I’ve heard that on other days, the hogs run in herds. On my days they were singular. You can never tell. That’s why they call it hunting.
The doe hunting was not unchallenging either. Since the bucks are managed carefully, and we were not there to hunt them, they became an impediment to the doe hunt at times – especially because it was the rut. Finding a clear shot on a standing doe when a buck (or more) is chasing her, takes patience. It gave me a lot of scope practice. That was when having a guide along to advise me was especially helpful. The guide could watch the bigger picture while I had the small scope picture. It was all very interesting and educational.
By the end of the weekend, I had harvested one good size eating-hog, and one small cull doe. Unlike at home where I would have had to field dress and drag my own deer back to my own vehicle, the folks at the ranch took care of all that. I asked if I could assist with skinning my hog, because I wanted to use a knife a friend had made for me, but otherwise they would have taken care of all of it for me.
My first hog harvest.My first deer ever. She’s a little cull doe to thin the ranch herd.
Some of the gals drove their own vehicles to get to the ranch, so they packed their meat in coolers to take with them. Since I flew, I made arrangements with a local butcher to process and ship my meat to me. I had to go buy a small chest freezer when I got home, and now my freezer and I are waiting expectantly!
Although LACE camp has loaner bolt action rifles for the women hunters to use, I brought my own rifle and ammo. Reason being that I built my AR .308 myself from Aero Precision parts. You can read more about the rifle angle here, but suffice to say that at least part of the thrill of this hunting experience was the fact that I harvested these animals with a rifle I built with my own two hands! It took fifty-six years, but I am finally a bonafide deer and hog hunter!
I want to thank everyone responsible for this event – from camp sponsors,
Hoppe’s, Champion, Bushnell, Mossberg, and Fiocchi, to LACE organizers Deb and Kay, to all of our guides and ranch wranglers, to Aero Precision and Black Hills Ammunition on my personal end. Last but certainly not least, I want to send a huge thank you to Joe Nixon – ranch manager, and everyone at Hawks Double Mountain Ranch for sharing your lovely facility with us. Your Texas hospitality is truly outstanding! I could not have asked for a better experience!
Yesterday afternoon and, around 2:00, law enforcement entered a standoff with Alexander Booth. Alexander, a 28-year old Army veteran who goes by the Instagram name whiskey_warrior_556, broadcast his side of the standoff via IG story updates and posts. Booth did appear and sound inebriated during his video posts, clinking his mug to his phone several times.
In that story he referred to the responding officers as pigs, red coats, and at one juncture posted that he told the LE negotiator there would be blood if he wasn’t given a written guarantee of not going prison. Several text exchanges and screen captures all seemed to indicate this whole incident was initiated by an Army peer of his over possession of a 30 round magazine, illegal in New York.
What followed, because of the social media interaction, was a flood of attention to the situation in Putnam County. Alex has over 134,000 IG followers now and digital and physical mobilization of the 2A community rallied to figure out what was going on. Many thought this might turn into another Bundy Ranch type situation. Most just didn’t know what was going on and wanted to find out.
After about 7 hours the standoff concluded and Booth was taken into custody, where it was originally reported he was not likely to face charges. But a warrant of both felony and misdemeanor charges was issued stemming around a domestic violence incident and larceny.
The Putnam County Sheriff’s Office has been inundated with calls and social media messages from citizens expressing concern about a police response in the Town of Carmel. The incident was widely reported to be a law enforcement effort to seize firearms under “Red Flag” laws. This information is incorrect. The law enforcement response and subsequent arrest was related to a domestic violence investigation. The citizen involved is safe and in police custody.
The incredibly high volume of phone calls, emails and social media messages has overwhelmed our systems and shutdown our ability to communicate with our community. While we respect the right of all citizens to inquire about law enforcement activity, we urge you to respect the needs of our community and restore our ability to serve them. Thank you.
The Police are saying that the social media response greatly hindered their efforts to resolve the issue with Booth. They know Booth suffers from PTSD and were taking that into account, however constant input from social media disrupted their process and significantly delayed the resolution.
Booth was detained unharmed at around 9:00 pm. No magazines or firearms were found with him. He is, to the best of my knowledge, facing charges related to a domestic incident and larceny or property damage and not possession of a high capacity magazine.
On Edge
What we learned here, more than anything, is just how much distrust the 2A community, or at least segments of it, have towards law enforcement in states unfriendly towards firearms rights. The Community was ready to believe, and many still do believe, that this is about magazines. That the official statement from Putnam County is a lie. And that they rallied to the defense of a patriot falsely accused instead of a man in crisis.
Plain and simple, this story would not have held up in a state where standard capacity magazines are legal. The whole narrative of infringement and jack booted thugs coming for him wouldn’t fly where red flag laws and magazine bans do not exist. But they do in New York, and Booth may even believe that was the case. I don’t know him. I’ve seen about 2 minutes of the man from an IG feed. But this whole distrustful climate wouldn’t have existed in a pro-2A state. The community wouldn’t have been as ready to believe if there was no ridiculous law in place.
I hope Booth is alright and remains so. I hope he gets the help he needs, legally, mentally, the whole thing. But what Alex exposed yesterday should give everyone a good hard pause as to the attitudes surrounding Red Flag laws and just how poorly this can go.
It didn’t this time. I hope like hell it never does.
The SIG P365 threw down the gauntlet when it came to producing small pistols with lots of firepower. Since the P365 was introduced, the market has been playing catch-up, and the Hellcat is the first real challenger. The Springfield Hellcat is an evolution of the XD line of polymer-frame striker-fired pistols. The Hellcat is a micro-compact 9mm that rivals the SIG P365 in size while packing an additional round in it’s flush fitting 11 round magazine. On top of that, the Hellcat has a 13 round extended magazine included.
The Hellcat is a class-leading firearm when it comes to measuring size and ammo capacity efficiency. The Hellcat has met with much fanfare, and I’ll say as an owner since launch I’ve become a big fan of this little gun.
Hellcat Specs
Size matters, and with concealed carry guns, there is a fine line to walk between too big and too small. A weapon that’s too big will often be harder to hide and more uncomfortable for daily carry. A gun that’s too small is too hard to shoot and manipulate. The Hellcat is just right. It’s small, but not too small. You can get a full grip on the gun and carry in comfort and concealment. Here’s the size by the numbers.
Length – 6 inches Barrel Length – 3 inches Width – 1 Inch Capacity – 11 or 13 rounds Height – 4 inches with the flush fit magazine, 4.5 with the extended magazine Weight – 17.9 ounces
As you can see, the gun is size efficient without being too small. It’s easy to carry regardless of the shooter’s size. From my 250 pound frame to my girlfriend’s petite 114 pounds, we can both comfortably conceal the weapon and manipulate its controls. The Hellcat is sized for everyone, and it works well size-wise for the majority of shooters, both big and small.
Ergonomics
One of the more challenging aspects of small gun design is making an ergonomic grip. It’s all about space efficiency, and the Hellcat does a beautiful job of creating an efficient and comfortable grip. The trigger guard has an excellent undercut that allows for a high grip. There is also a slight beavertail that protects your hand from slide bite when you take a high grip.
Without the included pinky extension, I did have a hanging pinky. I hate that, so I added the extension and found it to be well worth the additional height. The Hellcat uses a new grip texture called the adaptive grip texture. This texture’s design allows it to be grippy and aggressive when gripped hard and aggressive like. It’s soft when left alone and doesn’t rub your body raw. The grip texture goes quite high and gives you a very secure grip.
Speaking of texture, the serrations on the Hellcat’s slide are aggressive and easy to grip. I’ve heard concerns they are too shallow, but I find them perfectly cut. The rear serrations even go over the top, which I appreciate. With the small slide, the over the top serrations make a big difference when racking the weapon.
Handling the Hellcat
One notably effective control is the magazine release. This magazine release is slightly extended compared to most, and it’s intuitive and easy to engage. I love the magazine release and find it easy to drop an empty or partially filled magazine. Running through drills like the El Presidente is simple, and the reload can be one of the biggest challenges.
The gun foregoes a manual safety, and it also does away with the grip safety found on it’s predecessor XD series. The trigger safety has a central lever piece, like many striker designs utilize. If your finger is not on the trigger, this gun is not going bang. The trigger is a flat-faced trigger with nickel boron coated components to increase the smooth nature of the trigger’s pull.
The slide lock is like most small guns in my big hands. It’s largely useless. My thumb sits on it, and this disengages it. It’s something I face with most weapons, and it’s certainly present here. Oh well.
Range Time with the Hellcat
I’ve been putting hundreds of rounds through this gun in a short period. I hit 1,000 rounds of 9mm just last week. This includes 500 rounds of Winchester’s American Steel, which is quite likely the cheapest, dirtiest ammo on the market. In that time, I’ve run lots of drills and gotten in tons of practice. Before we talk about the drill, I ran, let’s talk about how the gun handles.
First off, recoil is plenty controllable but still present and noticeable. Small guns are like that. This one is pain-free and controllable. It doesn’t slap your hand or cause discomfort.
You’ll feel the gun raise as it recoils and climbs with rapid-fire. At ranges inside of 15 yards, it’s still easy to keep a magazine’s worth of rapid-fire on target. By rapid-fire, I mean all 11 rounds in 6 seconds or less.
These Wonderful Sights
The Hellcat is made for speed and close-range engagements. That’s just the nature of concealed carry guns and situations. The Hellcat’s sights are a brilliant addition for rapid and accurate shooting. The front sight is a bright yellow high visibility dot with a tritium vial in the center. The rear sight has a white U painted on it.
The effect is a set of sights that is very quick to align and straightforward to get on target. Getting the sights in line and on target becomes a natural part of your draw. This dramatically reduces the time it takes to get on target and makes it easier to land accurate shots.
When it came time to shoot timed drills, I found it quite easy to pass whatever exercise you tossed at me. I did so cold and started well before I had close to 1,000 rounds down the pipe. My first El Presidente was passed with ease, as well as my first iHack, Dot Torture, and many more.
With a timer, I was able to pull off a 1.9 failure to stop drill at 7 yards. The second chest shot went a little wide but still hit. In my 2.1 times, I was a bit more accurate. Taking on Box Drills, which is essentially two failure to stop drills on two targets, I skated by with a clean 3.05….once. My more typical speeds were 3.15 and 3.20ish.
As I mentioned before the gun fired 500 rounds of the worst ammo I could put through it, and then another 500 rounds without a single malfunction. The Hellcat has never been cleaned either. It’s still chugging along without issues. Not only has the gun been filthy dirty, but the magazines have also been dropped in sugar sand over and over while practicing reloads and executing different drills.
Springfield has a winner on its hands. Clay Martin recently put 10k rounds through a single Hellcat. They filmed every round fired and it’s worth checking.
The Hellcat comes in both a standard model and an optics ready model. Springfield also refers to the gun as the Hellcat 3 inch leading me to believe there is going to be another one out soon with a longer barrel. We’ll keep our eye peeled to be certain. The Hellcat is moving in on the competition and I can’t wait to see what comes next.
The city doesn’t hold regulatory power over the carrying of real firearms, which is regulated by the state government, leaving it in the strange position of disallowing toys while allowing citizens and tourists to openly carry real guns on their bodies. In fact, the state statute is worded in such a way that it may allow fake guns to legally squeak by on a technicality in spite of the city’s ordinance. – Newsweek
That is how preemption laws work, Newsweek. No body can enact a more restrictive law on a localized level than the state, in this case Nevada, has on the books. This is structured to prevent city and other municipal powers from violating second amendment rights piecemeal and creating a minefield of legal rule zones state residents and visitors must navigate, despite being licensed or legal to carry.
I can respect the ban on fake firearms and prop weapons in the entertainment district, exceptions being made for filming or permitted entertainment known and scheduled, because it ultimately means the firearms are real. Easy enough for LVPD, assume any gun is a real gun unless known otherwise by a filming permit or other official notice. And of course common sense, I see NW used a lime green squirt gun to illustrate their point and not, say, a scale airsoft replica of an M4 or Glock.
All legal guns are real, thus a perceived threat from a gun is that of a real gun. Officers put in the precarious position of making rapid life and death decisions can, with the backing of law, make an assumption the weapon is real if it looks real. Citizens and visitors can too. With the knowledge that only real firearms are permitted any threat that looks genuine can be assumed to be.
Why does this clarity matter? It’s the entertainment district, and some people have very funny ideas on what is “entertaining”.
https://youtu.be/_b9oQ22NCs0
You aren’t permitted to randomly set up this kind of stupidity.
People can’t hide behind their “comedy” or “satire” of life threatening and terrifying situations by using fake implements. You want to do this? Set up an actualy venue. Haunted Houses and other thrill venues are all about this stuff and people willing participate. There is far too much real violence to have someone wondering if they’re in a street show or about to die. Then that individual makes the wrong call and either kills an idiotic cast member of a stupid prank or gets injured and dies thinking it was just a prank.
As fun as Vegas can be with the wacky wild antics of the show life, I want to know what ground I stand on and so does Law Enforcement. The ordnance makes disambiguation far easier.
Now, Las Vegas may want to ban real firearms too, I don’t know for certain. The tone of the Newsweek article seems to suggest that. At least Newsweek seems to think a total ban makes sense.
I disagree. Real self defense only makes sense to me.
The law was introduced by Councilwoman Olivia Diaz, and it was explained that the law was encouraged by the city’s Public Safety Department, which wanted local ordinances to be consistent with existing laws for the Las Vegas Strip for the sake of safety. The Clark County Commission—which has authority over the Las Vegas Strip—passed a law that outlawed the display or use of any toy or replica firearm in 2012. There’s also a law in Henderson, Nevada that bans the “pointing, brandishing, concealing, using or attempting to use a fake firearm.”
Consistency, like that preemption law encourages. Firearms may be assumed to be real. In addition, this will likely stiffen penalties for using a fake weapon to commit a crime to that of using a real weapon. Many locales already hold this to be true, however if the fake weapons were legal to have on their persons there could be a case made for lesser penalties. That in turn could encourage those looking at ways to lower their criminal liability in event they get caught to use fakes.
Implying a weapon is real should be consistent with having the real weapon and where laws differ in any manner on this they should be made consistent.
Now, do I expect the ban to ‘work’? As in, do I expect replicas to vanish from the streets of Vegas’ entertainment district?
No.
A prohibited action like this and associated penalties make the application of penalties more clear cut and, like I said above, makes for much better disambiguation in already complex situations. I don’t expect this to drastically lower the instances of criminal misuse of replica weapons, I do see the avenues of both prosecution and defense becoming more clear cut though.
NEWINGTON, N.H., (November 22, 2019) – SIG SAUER, Inc. is proud to announce the delivery of the 100,000th M17 and M18 for the Modular Handgun System program to the U.S. Military, ahead of schedule, and surpassing the performance standards and requirements since the official contract award in January 2017.
“In the month of October SIG SAUER exceeded our manufacturing requirements by thirty percent and delivered a record-setting 12,100 handguns to the U.S. Military to achieve this historic milestone for SIG SAUER and the MHS program,” began Ron Cohen, President & CEO, SIG SAUER, Inc. “With the strict accuracy and acceptance specifications that the M17 and M18 are continuously exceeding, it’s clear that the success of this program can be directly attributed to the reliability, durability, and accuracy of the handgun, which has resulted in the high demand for both the M17 and M18 from every branch of the U.S. Military.”
The M17 and M18 handguns are a 9mm, striker-fired, P320-based handgun platform, featuring coyote-tan PVD coated stainless steel slides with black controls and utilize both 17-round and 21-round magazines. The handguns are equipped with SIGLITE front night sights, removable night sight rear plates, and manual safeties. To date SIG SAUER has delivered M17 and M18 handguns to all branches of the U.S. Military and the U.S. Coast Guard.
“From the very beginning the MHS program has been a true partnership between SIG SAUER and the U.S. Army which has resulted in the overwhelming success of the program, and ensuring that the M17 and M18 handguns are entering service, and in the field with our military,” concluded Cohen.
About SIG SAUER, Inc. SIG SAUER, Inc. is a leading provider and manufacturer of firearms, electro-optics, ammunition, airguns, suppressors, and training. For over 150 years SIG SAUER, Inc. has evolved, and thrived, by blending American ingenuity, German engineering, and Swiss precision. Today, SIG SAUER is synonymous with industry-leading quality and innovation which has made it the brand of choice amongst the U.S. Military, the global defense community, law enforcement, competitive shooters, hunters, and responsible citizens. Additionally, SIG SAUER is the premier provider of elite firearms instruction and tactical training at the SIG SAUER Academy. Headquartered in Newington, New Hampshire, SIG SAUER has almost 2,000 employees across eight locations. For more information about the company and product line visit: sigsauer.com.
Such weapons are a growing problem for law enforcement around the country because the parts are easy to obtain and the guns take limited expertise to build. In Southern California, federal authorities say one-third of all the firearms seized are ghost guns. – The New York Times
So kit guns that per Federal Law are not required to have a serial number when built for personal use, not retail sale, are a “growing problem” because their ownership cannot be traced/no background check is required to own them. Then apparently when someone does something illegal, like murder or aggravated assault, the lack of serial number for an ownership trace is the root of the problem? Not the murder or assault?
I understand that ownership trace is valuable data for law enforcement, especially if they are trying to track illicit arms trafficking, however this seems to be missing the forest for the trees when it comes to the problem of a mass casualty incident outside of organized criminal enterprise. We pay attention to the gun and its lack of a series of digits on the side while completely ignoring the person who used it. The complex sequence of thoughts and stimuli that led him to the conclusion that murdering classmates was the outlet he required is sidelined for… OMG NO numbers! No background check!
What if the person who bought this frame is a legal, licensed and background checked respectable California citizen? Would a serial number change any of that? Would numbers carved into the frame of a firearm have significantly altered the chain of custody on this gun enough to have prevented these deaths, his and his classmates? Was there no other reasonable access to means for the teen to kill his classmates?
The parts built no number 1911 is legal, in legal hands.
Which a 16 year old is not. Multiple homicide is also not legal by the way. Bringing a gun, serial number or no, to school is also illegal and will usually result in charges and expulsion.
But… the allegation now becomes ‘this would never have happened if the gun was required to have a serial number’, although you shouldn’t challenge this to authority bodies directly because then they have to acknowledge the ridiculously complex nature of a problem they keep trying and failing to rubber stamp with a simplistic solution.
It was popular for awhile. Showing just how ‘woke’ you were by giving up a gun because “enough was enough” and all that jazz. People commited multiple felonies, filmed them even and uploaded them to YouTube. See above. Virtue Signal Flexing came and, I thought, went.
Last month, Smith offered $500 to anyone who would surrender their AR-14 or AR-15 rifle to be destroyed and sign a pledge to give that money to a charity of their choice.
Jim Runsvold, of Caldwell, was visiting the area on a hunting trip and gave his AR-15 to Smith. The Daily News previously stated the rifle was an AR-14, but Runsvold confirmed it was an AR-15. If AR-14s are in circulation, they are much less common than AR-15s.
Ohhh man. Scary rifle right there.
Stan would like you to give up your rifles to him so he can destroy them because they are dangerous and shouldn’t be in civilian hands. Your AR-14’s (which would be as classic a collector item as could be in good condition, also clearly conventional hunting guns) and your AR-15’s.
He also doesn’t want you to take your money in fair trade, he wants you to donate it to charity. Also, apparently a private rifle sale between Stan and Jim was baffling to several observers.
Some have questioned the legality of a Viola man purchasing an AR-15 from a Caldwell man and then promising to donate the $500 to Family Promise of the Palouse in Moscow.
Moscow, Idaho. No Russian collusion. But as is well know, I thought, a person to person same state resident firearm sale is perfectly legal. Only a few states require NICS checks for private transfers to other state residents for rifles.
These are the people against us folks. Ignorant and determined.
Short answer. Yes. Aaron Cowan goes over the how and why in the video.
But the short short short version.
The short version. Because you are introducing more lenses into the equation and the light has to pass through them and there is now magnification which further distorts the light transmission, you must confirm that the magnified sight picture matches the results you want down range.
Each optical system independently verified. It’s worth your time.
Rep. Jennifer Wexton’s (D–Va.) “Gun Violence Prevention Through Financial Intelligence Act” would require the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) to “request information from financial institutions for the purpose of developing an advisory about the identification and reporting of suspicious activity.” The bill’s aim is to identify a consistent purchasing pattern among people who buy firearms and firearm accessories in order to conduct “lone wolf acts of terror” and expose how the firearms market in the United States is exploited by would-be mass shooters. – Reason
Representative Wexton, of the 52 “lone wolf acts of terror” between 1972-2015, as just published by the FBI, what defining purchase characteristics do you believe stands out? What are the ‘Suspicious Firearm Transactions’?
“Banks, credit card companies, and retailers have unique insight into the behavior and purchasing patterns that can help identify and prevent mass shootings,” Wexton explained in a statement. “The red flags are there—someone just needs to be paying attention.”
Where? What purchase data do we have on these 52 individuals that indicate we can predict their behavior through their credit cards? Ignore the fact that 79% selected targets with no security or minimal exterior security like cameras. Only 15% of lone wolf terror targets had, even rudimentary, hard security measures in place. Physical security certainly seem to be a deterrent. Although that is an oversimplification. But I am to believe suspicious firearm transactions will be conclusive?
But, by all means, let us hear your reasoning for wanting to flag everyone who buys a half case or more of ammunition, because it’s cheaper that way, because you can predict their violent behavior through financial behavior. Go on. I’ll wait. On top of that only 67% of those attacks used firearms, the thing you are purporting to want to track. 27% used explosives, 4% blades, and 6% vehicles. You’re missing a full third, and a very lethal third, of attackers methods.
Additionally, in these lone wolf attacks, 77% (27) of those who used firearms used a handgun while only 40% (14) used rifles. 49% (17) brought multiple firearms. 34% (12) had formal training in their background, military or law enforcement. But again, I’m sure Jennifer Wexton has a compelling reason to want to flag purchases.
Only 26 of the 35 cases have acquisition data on how they got their guns. Of those, 18 had purchased their weapon(s) legally. So we only have, at most, 18 examples to draw data from to establish purchasing habits of a lone wolf mass shooter… 18. And that’s if we could pull those 18’s whole purchasing history, compare it to national averages, and flag outlier behaviors they exhibited to reliably ‘flag’ them.
So you, Jennifer Wexton, want to tell me we can reliably extrapolate data on lone wolf terrorists based on a sample size of 18, assuming we have perfect financial histories on all 18.
Stag Arms says they are done dealing with Connecticut and their new home will be Wyoming.
The company will move to Cheyenne later this year after picking the new location. The shift follows similar recent moves by other firearms companies, most notably Weatherby and Magpul, who left California and Colorado, respectively, for new and more friendly pastures.
“I am pleased to welcome Stag Arms to Wyoming and to know that our state came out on top of a broad look at potential new homes for the sought-after company,” said Wyoming Gov. Mark Gordon in a statement. “We have a deep-seated commitment to the Second Amendment that I will continue to uphold.”
Stag was founded in May 2003 and has carved out a niche in the gun market with 556/.223-caliber AR-15 and .308/6.5 Creedmoor AR-10 style rifles, parts, builder’s sets, and accessories. The were also crucial in the early days for people seeking left handed ejecting rifles, although that request trend has faded as unnecessary.
According to the ATF data, the company manufactured 10,932 rifles in 2017. They are the second largest rifle maker in Connecticut, just behind Colt. Stag produced more rifles than Mossberg’s North Haven, Connecticut facility in the same year. In short, they are a long term major player in the AR market and
Chicago ‘Red Flag’ success it is not. Not remotely. Not even a little bit. Nothing about the ‘Red Flag’ law needed to exist to arrest this man for having a gun.
George L. Silva, 48, of the 26300 block of North Diamond Lake Road, had his bail set at $50,000 Tuesday on three counts of unlawful possession of a firearm by a felon. He is a convicted felon and had a revoked Firearm Owners Identification Card, according to a statement by the sheriff’s office.
So Silva alreadycouldn’t legally possess a firearm. That isn’t Red Flag, ERPO, or any other variant of the gap fill laws that supposedly catch those who ‘might be a threat to themselves or others’…
Silva.
Is.
A.
FELON.
It is illegal in every and all sense for this man to possess a firearm.
“Our Patrol Division quickly recognized this individual posed a substantial risk to the community. Given the circumstances, deputies moved swiftly to petition the Court for an emergency firearm restraining order and search warrant, and when executed resulted in three illegally possessed firearms being seized,” Sheriff John Idleburg said in a statement.
“This is a textbook case of the importance of the new red flag laws in Illinois.”
No it isn’t.
This man, if discovered with a firearm under the law before any of this red flag legal stuff, was committing a felony. He would be or should be arrested as a felon. He was a prohibited person with his FOID revoked.
Red Flag laws, ERPOs, and the laws of similar descriptor are all billed as this necessary stop gap for people who do not have a criminal record. Not as a method to enforce current law. Chicago is literally calling the extra laws just to enforce current federal and state laws a success. We needed new laws just to follow the old laws. That’s the Chicago win.
They confirmed pad their murder clearance rate stats so I shouldn’t be surprised… but still.
Over here at SCOTUSBlog, Amy Howe has an update on just what is going on within the confines of the New York case.
For those unfamiliar, we are speaking about city rules that effectively barred all legal transport of a legally owned firearm within the city by the owners. The rules were onerous, horrid, and because of this lawsuit they were actually changed. New York scrambled to amend their own rules in order
But not before the US Supreme Court took up the case. It is the first time in nearly a decade that SCOTUS has weighed in on a Second Amendment issue, a fact that Justice Thomas blisteringly destroyed. “the right to keep and bear arms is apparently this Court’s constitutional orphan.” he wrote in his descent.
However they are correct in saying the original purpose of the suit has been addressed by New York, they amended the rule. The question is whether or not SCOTUS believes New York was genuine or if they will address the dodge as what it is, a dodge to try and hamstring a lawsuit that could open carry and transport rights widely across the nation.
Over the summer, however, the city urged the court to invalidate the 2nd Circuit’s decision and send the case back with instructions to dismiss it as moot – that is, no longer a live controversy. The city explained that, under changes to both state law and the city’s rules, the challengers can now “do exactly what they have requested in this lawsuit: transport their handguns within New York City to take them to shooting ranges and second homes outside the City.” As a result, the city stressed, it “no longer has any stake in the constitutional questions regarding the former rules.” The city’s position was bolstered by a “friend of the court” brief by Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) and four other Democratic senators, who argued that the justices should refrain from ruling on the merits of the case to avoid the appearance of partisanship.
Ultimately, whether SCOTUS uses this to make a broad statement about the right to keep and bear arms or they use it to narrowly define how the aggrieved in New York may seek redress… we don’t know yet. But the further I look at this the more it looks like this won’t be the cascading win 2A advocates want it to be and instead be tailored the remaining specifics of the New York case.
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