Friday Tour d’Horizon, 2017 Week 02

As we all know from Junior High French, Tour d’Horizon means Hognose has too many stories in his open tabs at the end of the week. What do you expect? It’s Friday the 13th!

Guns

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

Yeah, This is a Curio and Relic this Year

It’s a 1967 Colt AR-15 Sporter SP1, serial number SP09088, which by the number was made in 1967, and is therefore C&R eligible this year.

Rock Island Auctions, which includes this rifle in its 10,000 gun mega-auction in February, explains:

Did you know that per the ATF, “Firearms automatically attain Curio & Relic status when they are 50 years old”? Did you also know that the earliest AR rifles were made in the mid-1960s? Meaning that, if you have your C&R license, you could have guns like this Colt AR-15 shipped right to you. The one shown here will turn 50 later this year.

One more thing for Gun Ban Barbie and her gang to flip their lids over (to use some slang of similar vintage).

Gun Porn: M1A1 Thompson

There’s a decent if brief article at Recoil by the aptly named Jamie Slaughter, covering the wartime M1A1 Thompson, and in true Recoil tradition it’s got some lovely photographs.

The lines of the TSMG were so lovely that even the bowdlerized wartime model still looks gorgeous, like a movie star at the gym. It was also remarkably ergonomic for its day.

It reminds us, we’ve been meaning to write up our Kahr M1A1 SBR: the good, the bad, and the ugly.

Remington RP9

Well, this is Remington’s big gun for 2017: a 9mm service pistol. (Its grip is sized so that .40 and .45 versions are possible; only the .45 has been announced). The .45 will have a 15-round magazine; with the 9 you have 18 rounds in the mag.

We dunno about you, but if we can’t kill it with 18 rounds (let alone 36), we’ve got no plans to start a fight with it. Is anybody going to load this up with 18 and the extra round in the chamber?

Yeah. Probably. We know our people.

It has a light rail, trigger safety, ambi slide stop and reversible mag release, and a loaded chamber indicator (the extractor, right side only). One clever feature is a sort of flat on the forward surface of the rear sight, to allow the slide to be racked one-handed if necessary.

The RP9 and RP45 is made in Remington’s new Huntsville, Alabama plant (for which Huntsville can thank Andrew Cuomo). And it’s very aggressively priced, at $489 List, which makes it competitive with anything out there, even Glock LEO pricing.

It is a Glock-alike in many ways, a striker-fired pistol with a polymer frame, but the slide runs less on the frame and more on a steel chassis inside, which is the serialized part.

That makes it a bit like the SIG 320, except there’s no interchangeable frames (there are interchangeable grip swells, which are becoming standard these days). The pistol is very simple, with a low parts count and extensive use of rapid and cheap manufacturing technology (which is how they get to $489).

There is no need to pull the trigger for disassembly, which means cops will have to try harder to shoot themselves with this firearm. (That same 5% who never get the word will still manage it).

Gun Stocks update

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

-8 week’s closings: RGR 53.20, SWHC 24.13, VSTO 40.02. [18 Nov 16]

-7 week’s closings: RGR 52.50, SWHC 23.82, VSTO 41.05. [25 Nov 16] [short trading day and week]

-6 week’s closings: RGR 50.25, SWHC 21.10, VSTO 39.66. [2 Dec 16]

-5 week’s closings: RGR 51.90, SWHC 21.07, VSTO 38.62. [9 Dec 16]

-4 week’s closings: RGR 53.45, SWHC 21.59, VSTO 36.81. [16 Dec 16]

-3 week’s closings: RGR 54.05, SWHC 22.11, VSTO 38.02. [23 Dec 16]

-2 week’s closings: RGR 52.70, SWHC 21.08, VSTO 36.90. [30 Dec 16] (this was the final close for SWHC, which renamed itself AOBC).

Last week’s closings: RGR 54.15, AOBC (ex-SWHC) 21.00, VSTO 38.08. [6 Jan 17]

This week’s closings: RGR 51.35, AOBC 20.60, VSTO 28.70. [13 Jan 17]

Red means “lower than the previous week.” Everybody’s lower, but Vista Outdoor really got shelled. Why? Vista crashed on opening Thursday, down over 25% after being pretty stable. What happened is that “a softening retail environment and increased promotional activity” in one of Vista’s several business units requires them to take a charge to the intangible value item called “Goodwill” on the balance sheet. (It’s explained in more detail here, but “softening retail market” means “sales are down,” and “increased promotional activity” means “each sale is costing us more”). The interesting thing is that this charge is not in the Firearms and Ammunition part of the business, but in the segment that produces shooting and archery accessories. But it’s such a big charge that it’s going to turn a nice quarterly profit into a disastrous ($300 million plus) loss. Vista doesn’t think they’ll have a similar problem with gun and ammo sales, but they haven’t done that arithmetic yet, so the Street has run screaming to other opportunities.

Disclaimer: Your Humble Blogger holds RGR, bought at about 56.40 on 9 Nov 16. 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

Pro-Gun Bills in Congress

A number of bills are moving in Congress. The ones that have some odds of passage are progun. The two we’re watching most closely are national reciprocity, and limited NFA reform. This is the best chance we’ve had in many years to get these legislative priorities. Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY) has vowed to kill them in the Senate, but he may not have the votes.

Close the ATF? Let’s Think First

Another legislative bombshell would eliminate the ATF. Frankly, the Bureau has it coming after the ATF’s Thomas F. Brandon campaigned for gun control and Hillary! last fall, not to mention its history of scandal, but we might want to think this over a little more.

If you close the ATF, what happens to the problem children? You have to do something with the SES managers and SACs that produced the Gunwalker program, including but not limited to the Fast & Furious scheme to arm the Sinaloa cartel as (1) a counterweight to Los Zetas, and (2) to promote domestic gun control. Under the proposed bill, they all chop over to the FBI. Does anybody think he FBI wants Thomas Brandon? Dave Voth?

It also seems like it’s punitive to the line special agents. Many in the gun culture think ATF does nothing but infiltrate the Hells’ Angels and try to entrap suburban dads into NFA violations. We get the ATF press releases every Friday, and not only are they fighting against the real scourge of gun shop burglaries, they’re also putting away a lot of gang members and career criminals who, frankly, need to be put away. Most of your regular ATF agents are plain old 1811 Criminal Investigators, who want to investigate crimes, not manufacture them.

The FBI also has been playing partisan political police, lately, and displeasing members of both parties. Aggrandizing the FBI doesn’t seem wise.

Frankly, a better move for Congress would be to retain the ATF, but compel greater transparency, and strip it of some of the regulatory authority that it has abused. In effect, put the ATF under a consent decree.

The Dog That Has Not Barked: ITAR

Nothing has been said yet about yanking the State Department’s ITAR chain. It’s a chain that needs to be yanked, for sure, but again the underlying problem is one of Congress delegating legislative authority to power-crazed, unaccountable bureaucrats.

Usage and Employment

 The hardware takes you only half way. We got nothin’ this week, just because we’re running late. 

Cops ‘n’ Crims

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

Chicago Record Adjustments?

We saw a site today — didn’t grab the link — that said the final box score for 2016 was 816, per the medical examiner. That probably counts the justifiables, though, which would almost square it with HeyJackass.com’s 796. Also, either Jackass or Second City Cop noted a program at University of Chicago for the admissions office to pay students up to $500 to come up with good lies about how safe the city is, because it’s starting to cost them top candidates.

Criminals and Child Welfare Authorities

We recently told the story of Sara Packer, who with her boyfriend was charged with murdering and dismembering her adopted daughter, Grace. Packer mère was a former adoption official. There were many horrifying details. But more horrifying details have emerged, including the fact that Sara Packer’s former husband went to prison for, inter alia, raping an underage Grace, and that 30 kids passed through their home as fosters. And that all this happened while they “led a transient life.”

Yeah, those are the people in charge of judging your parenting, America.

Sumdood did Whaaaat?

Lord love a duck. This creep, one Joey Kennedy, set a cop on fire, which is just par for the Black Criminals’ Lives Matter course, but he really overstepped it… he set the K9 on fire, too.

http://bluelivesmatter.blue/tampa-police-officer-t…

The cop and the K9 are going to be OK. The perp may also recover, unfortunately. (The cop, understandably, lit him up — no pun intended). He has a trifecta record: violent, property, and sex crimes (including child rape). Why was he even out?

And is there any member of the extended (very extended?) Kennedy clan that doesn’t wind up in a cell sooner or later?

The Perils of Kathleen: When the Chick is Gone and All You Got Left is the Bills…

We’re giving Korrupt Kathleen a week off. It’s too depressing to look her up. Well, we will note that her last legal bill cost the taxpayers of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania a tidy $1.435 million. The outgoing placeholder acting-jack AG got the lawyers to knock off almost $400k from their initial bill, which was almost $2 million. For a diversion attempt, as she faced a photo finish with a grand jury (which she lost).  And the saga continues.

Unconventional (and current) Warfare

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

Tomorrow

Your choice. Do you guys want to see a brief explanation of what “Civil War Sharpshooters” were, or a breakdown of the “Intelligence Disciplines” (all the “INTs”), building on Friday’s 17 Intel Agencies post? Pick one, in the comments. Or we’ll pick it for you.

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™?

Exchanges to Sell Online to Vets

Right now, to use the military exchanges, you need to be eligible. The services have defined that as active, reserve, or retired. (And there are some provisos and oddities). But until 2017 veterans who are not retired, your typical one-tour-and-home honorably-discharged vets, haven’t had exchange access.

The good: the online exchange services will be open to all of you one-tour wonders like they are to us knuckle-dragging lifers.

The bad: not until Veterans Day (11 November 17!), because it’s going to take them that long to make eligibility work. And vets who got out pre-1981 might have to jump through some hoops to get their service recognized, as that’s the event horizon of the computerized records.

The ugly: we can’t imagine why anybody with acccess to the really real economy would want to shop at the exchanges. But they think they have incredible bargains. (Actually, the exchanges are exempt from state taxes, so if you live in a high-tax jurisdiction like 9.5% Missouri or send-us-your-firstborn-male-child New Jersey you might actually save.

Story here. Exchange website here.

NBC New York: Shootings Caused by Veterans!

You can read this indignant article at Mediaite, but the guy is railing about one of those lists that media drones have the unpaid intern put together, listing every crime committed by a tickin-time-bomb veteran. As if being a veteran is why they did it, and not, say, being nuts, or being mohammedan (but we repeat ourselves).

The implication that military service somehow causes mass shootings is even worse considering most of the veterans listed had known motivations entirely devoid of their military background.Micah Johnson was a black militant who believed in race war, Wade Michael Page was a white supremacist who wanted the same. Nidal Hassan… hmm, the timeline forgot to list his motive. Guess it was workplace violence.

Yeah, we’re all ticking time bombs.

Funny how the white racist and the black racist wind up in exactly the same place, shooting folks to cause a race war. That was what Charles Manson was trying to do, too, although his gang was more stabbing than shooting. It didn’t work then and it won’t work now.

Vets Helping Vets

A few of you know Tilt Meyer. Some others might at least know his articles and books. John Stryker Meyer ran recon and was a Covey Rider in SOG. Then he wrote about the experience. But he remains pretty active today helping vets, and a San Diego paper did a pretty decent article about him. We really ought to give it more of a write-up here, but at least this is something, and you can always go to the link.

Lord Love a Duck! ALL NEW

The weird and wonderful (or creepy) that we didn’t otherwise get to.

This is Your Doctor on Overconfidence

The American Academy of Pediatrics, which also wants to ban guns, got peanut allergies completely wrong. Best thing to do is give at-risk kids some nut products in infancy, when their immune system is developing. The absence of the stimulus leads later to allergy, and then it’s too late.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/12/well/family/par…

Do these barbers have any more advice for us?