Friday Tour d’Horizon, Week 52

Last Tour d’Horizon of 2016, which conveniently ends on a Saturday.

Guns

I don’t wanna work, I just wanna bang on my gun all day.

That’s Not an Auction, Mate. This is an Auction:

Rock Island’s next Regional Auction is going to take place Feb. 16-19. Why four days, when past auctions have been two or occasionally three?

Ten thousand guns. That’s a one followed by four zeroes. Here’s the catalog. There are 2093 lots that are curio and relic firearms. Winchester? 892 lots. Colt, 784. Mauser is represented with 180, and Springfield Armory (mostly, the real Springfield Armory) with 230, including a rare Springfield .45 M1911 made in 1914.

You know you want it.

And a fake Luger prototype, which they give the dignified name of “professional copy” to:

That’s one of over 100 Lugers, including at least a dozen Artillery (lange Pistole.08) and at least one Navy model.

Gun Stocks update

Pre-Election closings: RGR 64.40, SWHC 28.45, VSTO 38.94.  [8 Nov 16]

-6 week’s closings: RGR 53.20, SWHC 24.13, VSTO 40.02. [18 Nov 16]

-5 week’s closings: RGR 52.50, SWHC 23.82, VSTO 41.05. [25 Nov 16] [short trading day and week]

-4 week’s closings: RGR 50.25, SWHC 21.10, VSTO 39.66. [2 Dec 16]

-3 week’s closings: RGR 51.90, SWHC 21.07, VSTO 38.62. [9 Dec 16]

-2 week’s closings: RGR 53.45, SWHC 21.59, VSTO 36.81. [16 Dec 16]

Last week’s closings: RGR 54.05, SWHC 22.11, VSTO 38.02. [23 Dec 16]

This week’s closings: RGR 52.70, SWHC 21.08, VSTO 36.90. [30 Dec 16]

Red means “lower than the previous week.” All three stocks are lower this week.

Disclaimer: Your Humble Blogger holds RGR, bought at about 56.40 on 9 Nov. It bottomed in the 40s later that day. We still think it has longterm growth potential, and we like the dividend, but we’ve lost (on paper) thousands of dollars.

Gun Poly-Ticks

Eurocrats Impose Sweeping Gun Restrictions

Pro-gun Activists Lost; the Euro restrictions passed. The New York Times is ecstatic. Their photog captured Jean-Claude Juncker in the early stages of his Hitler salute, fittingly enough.

California Laws

In California, loopy new laws effective tomorrow raise the minimum wage in steps to $15 (a subsidy for automation developers), encourage the distribution of EpiPens (from a company controlled by the family of politician Joe Manchin), banned sports teams named Redskins and redefined underage hookers as victims-of-trafficking instead, insuring a ready supply of the underage hookers so popular in Sacramento. There are also, being California, plenty of loopy new gun laws. ABC TV-7 LA:

People who own magazines that hold more than 10 rounds will be required to give them up starting Jan. 1.

Good luck with that. Previous bans everywhere have seen compliance rates from rounds-to-zero to approximately 30 percent, and no ban has ever seriously restricted criminal access to weapons.

But of course, this ban is not aimed at criminal access, but at yours. 

Buyers must undergo a background check before purchasing ammunition and will be barred from buying new weapons that have a device known as a bullet button.

NICS for ammo is just a “sickener” meant to shrink participation in shooting sports. The Bullet Button is a California-only perversion that turned a detachable-magazine firearm into a firearm with a magazine only removable by a tool, such as the tip of a bullet.

Law enforcement officers will be required to follow the same rules as civilians by securely storing handguns in a lockbox out of plain view or in the trunk if the weapons are left in an unattended vehicle. SB 869 by Sen. Jerry Hill, D-San Mateo, closed a legal loophole that had exempted authorities and concealed weapons permit holders from those rules. The move came after stolen guns were used in high-profile crimes.

The reporter doesn’t want to mention that the “high-profile” crimes were things like the murder of Kate Steinle, committed by a criminal alien, who was free to commit the outrage under California and San Francisco sanctuary-for-violent-criminal-aliens policy.

Usage and Employment

The hardware takes you only half way. This week the theme is Safety

Safety: Don’t do this.

We”ll just put this out there:

[A] woman shot in the eye at a South Carolina gun range earlier this week has died.

Anderson County Coroner Greg Shore told local media outlets that 24-year-old Sarah Bonner from Lawrenceville, Georgia, died early Thursday after being on life support for several days.

She was shot in the face Monday while visiting friends and family for Christmas. Shore says an autopsy is being done, and the bullet will be examined to show which gun it came from.

Anderson County Sheriff’s Office Lt. Sheila Cole said in an email that investigators are examining whether the shooting was an accident.

Now, it might not be an accident. It might be one of those rental range suicides that have been creeping out ROs and range owners for the last few years.

Safety: And Don’t do this, either.

One suspects that “the second officer” has beaucoup ‘splaining to do, back at the cop shop:

Police in Weatherford near Fort Worth say officer Chris Bumpas was conducting the stop Thursday evening when he discovered there was a warrant for the arrest of one of three people in the vehicle.

Police said in a statement that the man became combative and struck the officer with a flashlight.

The second officer couldn’t subdue the suspect using a stun gun and fired multiple shots, striking Bumpas and the suspect.

Police say Bumpas is recovering from surgery on his abdomen. The suspect, whose name hasn’t been released, is in guarded condition at a hospital.

We’ll bet he’s in “guarded” condition. But while we often make fun of cop marksmanship, the joke’s not funny this time. May the officer recover.

Safety: It’s Always Loaded, Especially With Someone New

This guy should have known better — he was a 71 year old lifelong gun owner and NRA member, and one of the few friendly voices we had in the legacy media. But M.D. Harmon was showing a kid and his father a gun in his own house, and when the kid handled the gun, it fired a single shot, killing Harmon instantly.

What state is your firearm in, people? Loaded. Form the habit. Harmon never expected an accident, either.

Safety: A 12-Year-Old Boy

After hunting with family and friends, the party returned and were handling a gun.

Spencer Bennett Jr., died at a friend’s home in Noxubee County on Thursday after a high-powered rifle discharged.

Bennett had just returned from hunting with a friend and an adult shortly after 6 p.m. Calhoun said they apparently were passing around the firearm when it discharged accidentally. He said Bennett was shot in the upper abdomen and died at the scene.

Heartbreaking.

Cops ‘n’ Crims

Cops bein’ cops, crims bein’ crims. The endless Tom and Jerry show of crime and (sometimes instantaneous) punishment.

Chicago Racks up Records

While the rest of the world was celebrating a Christmas message of peace and light, the black gangs of Chicago were braving cold weather to commit dozens of shootings and at least 13 murders, bringing the city tally to 785 homicides, of which about 90% (705) were by gunfire, by midway through the weekend.

New Years’ weekend is only getting underway, but as of 10 PM Friday night, it seems probable it will break the 2015-16 record of 4 killed 40 wounded is probable (3 killed, 4 wounded with Saturday, Sunday, and Monday’s day off still to be counted).

The box score is 793 homicides of which 713 were by firearm, with one long day yet to go.

In an interesting statistic, while Chicago and other police ended the criminal careers of 11 perps with well-placed gunshots, since the legalization of self defense over the objections of the Chicago political combine, non-cop self-defenders have nailed 9 of the varmints. One of them just today. (He actually shot two robbers, but Chicago’s very experienced trauma teams saved one).

One factor? With the police having “gone fetal,” in the memorable phrase of the cop-loathing mayor, Rahm Emanuel, arrests are way, way, down: 28% according to the higher-ups, and 35% by Second City Cop’s estimate. If you don’t arrest criminals, they’re available on the street to do killings. Funny how that works.

As the year ends, Chicago’s homicide clearance rate is a mighty 18.4%.

All stats, of course, are from HeyJackass.com.

The Perils of Kathleen: Back in the News

The anti-gun, convicted felon former Attorney General remains a headline producer.

• Item: State Wants to Stiff Kane Email Lawyers. Kane ran an investigation on a cost-no-object basis into off-color emails sent by other public servants. Her objective was, apparently, a tu quoque defense, which she should have learned in law school doesn’t work. The State has paid almost $400k but the lawyers want a total of nearly $2 million.

A spokesman for Attorney General Bruce Beemer said Thursday the office is trying to negotiate an “acceptable settlement.” The spokesman says the office has paid $385,000, while the Buckley Sandler law firm is seeking approximately $1.5 million more.

• Item:  Korrupt Kathleen Kane was PA’s Top Story of 2016. Hey, don’t take our word for it. Here’s Penn Live, 90.5 WESA, WITF “Smart Talk”… there’s more.

Unconventional (and current) Warfare

What goes on in the battlezones of the world — and preparation of the future battlefields. 

Jews to Obama: Thanks, We’ll Pass on your Boxcars

After the injury of a UN vote to condemn Israel — something signaled years ago when the anti-Semite, seething, and man-jawed Samantha Power was named UN ambassador — the Obama followed up with an insult at a national menorah lighting ceremony. They sent, as the traditional government participant, a nominally Jewish entry-level political appointee who has been working to redefine zionism as terrorism.

But the rabbi leading the ceremony, Levi Shemtov, let the official, acting undersecretary for terrorism in the Treasury Department Adam Szubin, say he piece, then insulted Szubin in turn, albeit politely: he brought up the name of perhaps the most hated Jew in the most Jew-hating Administration the United States has ever had, Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu. Szubin was left to seethe in silence at what was otherwise the high-water mark of his career as a payroll patriot.

Veterans’ Issues

Is it time to o disband this thing yet, and letting all its bloatoverhead seek its own level in the Dreaded Private Sector™? (Nothing this week, sorry).

Lord Love a Duck!

The weird and wonderful (or creepy) that we didn’t otherwise get to.(Nothing this week, sorry).