Launch a grenade, plant a tree . . . US Army Asks for Biodegradable Ammo – “The request was made via the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program. Specifically, the DoD wants ‘biodegradable training ammunition loaded with specialized seeds to grow environmentally beneficial plants that eliminate ammunition debris and contaminants.’ The ammunition the DoD wants to replace with biodegradable alternatives includes ‘low velocity 40mm grenades; 60mm, 81mm, and 120mm mortars; shoulder launched munitions; 120mm tank rounds; and 155mm artillery rounds.’ There’s also cartridge cases and sabot petals, which can either lay on the ground or end up buried beneath it.”

Last year’s Windy City murder rate was even worse than you thought . . . Chicago Homicides Even Higher Than Reported –  “The record-setting violence in Chicago is even worse than announced as new evidence shows the city suffered 50 more homicides last year than the numbers publicly reported in the past week. The city posted a decades-high homicide count of 812 in 2016, per the Cook County Medical Examiner’s office. That’s 15% greater than the 762 murders reported by the city’s police department.” 

Civilian disarmament heaven . . . How Japan has almost eradicated gun crime – “If you want to buy a gun in Japan you need patience and determination. You have to attend an all-day class, take a written exam and pass a shooting-range test with a mark of at least 95%. There are also mental health and drugs tests. Your criminal record is checked and police look for links to extremist groups. Then they check your relatives too – and even your work colleagues. And as well as having the power to deny gun licences, police also have sweeping powers to search and seize weapons. That’s not all. Handguns are banned outright. Only shotguns and air rifles are allowed.”

Sheriff blasts gun store after burglary – “‘Gun store owners, you have an ethical and moral obligation to protect your guns when you’re not there,’ said Sheriff Grady Judd. The sheriff said deputies had warned them before. ‘They went into the store without much resistance at all,’ said Judd. ‘These guns all go to the street. They all go to criminals. People like the man who shot an Orlando police officer is going to have those guns.'” Honey, you really shouldn’t have worn such a short skirt around here.

They may want to worry about anti-Trumpers, too . . . Police Worry Radical Trump Backers Will Bring Guns To Inauguration – “DC police are increasingly concerned that some of President-elect Donald Trump’s supporters traveling to the nation’s capital for next week’s inauguration will be bringing not just heavy sweaters and down jackets, but firearms too. Police prepare for armed individuals at demonstrations and at the inauguration itself, but have rarely had to deal with any in recent memory: no gun related arrests were made during the 2009 and 2013 inaugurations. But with racial tensions high and coming on the heels of a divisive, sometimes violent presidential campaign, police are wary guns could make an appearance this year.”

You know that recent report about .45 being the least effective self defense caliber? . . . WATCH: When an Armed Robber Tries Robbing a Gun Store, Things go Badly for Him – “How stupid do you have to be to even think this is going to go well? This robber apparently thought this would go smoothly. He was fatally shot on the spot.” Click the image above to view the video.

OMG! Silencers! OMG! A new absurdity from the gun lobby: The ‘Hearing Protection Act’ (it’s actually about deregulating silencers) – “The gun lobby certainly is adept at promoting counterintuitive (and probably counterproductive) policy positions, such as that the answer to gun violence in America is more guns. Politicians certainly are adept at giving their bills titles that conceal their purpose, like calling a bill that narrows privacy rights and constrains civil liberties the ‘Patriot Act.’ Put these proclivities together, and you get the ‘Hearing Protection Act,’ introduced Monday by Reps. Jeff Duncan (R-S.C.) and John Carter (R-Texas). From the title alone, you’d have no idea that it’s about deregulating the sale of gun silencers.”

Culture wars . . . Gun violence in PG-13 movies soars. Are ‘superhero’ movies to blame? – “(T)he omnipresent guns in the latest Star Wars movie also reflect a trend in Hollywood over the past 30 years toward increasing gun violence in superhero/fantasy/comic book-type action flicks aimed at children and teens — a shift that has created confusion about what differentiates a PG-13 movie such as ‘Rogue One’ from an R-rated film. Think characters like Batman, Avengers, X-Men and Transformers. In fact, according to a new analysis, the amount of gun violence in the 30 top-grossing PG-13 movies now exceeds the gun violence in the top R-rated flicks. And it is continuing to rise.”

Double plus crimethink . . . Young hunter gets grief at school for shirt with eight-point buck – “Domonique Yatsko harvested her first deer on the last day of youth deer-gun weekend in November. It was an eight-point buck. To celebrate, a picture taken of the 9-year-old and the deer was put on a black sweatshirt. Heidi Yatsko told The Gazette on Thursday that her daughter proudly wore the sweatshirt to school the next day. ‘She was very proud when she took her first deer,’ the mother said. But when Domonique came home from school, Heidi said, she threw the sweatshirt in the garbage. Domonique told her mother she was ‘yelled at’ by her teacher and told to take off the sweatshirt because ‘killing animals is not what we do.’”

How safe is your place of work?

86 COMMENTS

  1. A 60mm mortar? I only remember an 81 and a 4.2. And that belt fed farm implement in the picture looks like a fun way to spread seeds.

    • The Mk 19 Grenade Launder is lots of fun, especially when the grenades go boom 2200 meters down range.

    • I used to transport 60mm and 81mm HE mortars when I was an 0311 reservist / tactical driver instructor / HAZMAT – endorsed driver. Good times, but you really don’t want to crash.

    • 60mm mortar is a great piece of equipment. Packable indirect fire and small enough to bring a good amount of rounds with you. We took one everywhere and put it to great use.

    • “belt fed farm implement”

      Belt Fed Farm Implement Protection Act. Farmers deserve the right to automate food production.

  2. So other forms of violence, like swords and such, are somehow okay, but guns are bad? (Rhetorical)

  3. I always thought the blood of tyrants and patriots was enough of a fertilizer. Preferably, just the tyrants.

  4. Oh man don’t put a dead deer on your kids shirt. I have no problem with that but damn !! Your kid will catch all kinds of hell in a public sewer… er school.

    Sorry but I agree with the cop shaming the gunshop. Unless they come in with a bulldozer/semi you need to not get your stuff stolen. My favorite gunshop got robbed recently and it wasn’t hard. Back door glass and in and out. AND the po-leece station directly across the street.

    Disagree all you want but as far as I know Chucks in Riverdale,IL has never been robbed. Yeah Chucks in an extremely high crime hood too. Blast doors and bars and buzzed to get in. Hey I won’t even go there and I bought my 1st gun from them.

    • It’s still victim blaming. Of course everyone should have some personal responsibility and self awareness, but when the rubber hits the road the gun store is and will always be the victim.

      • Nonsense. Have your shite together. It’s a freaking gun shop. It needs to be secure. And it IS their fault. Nothing and I mean nothing to do with a gal parading in sscanty attire. It’s a retail store. My ghetto gunshop example is in full view in Riverdale,Illinois.

      • Nonsense. Have your shite together. It’s a freaking gun shop. It needs to be secure. And it IS their fault. Nothing and I mean nothing to do with a gal parading in scanty attire. It’s a retail store. My ghetto gunshop example is in full view in Riverdale,Illinois.

        • Bullshit!

          Unless they left the door open and a pot of coffee waiting for the hoodlums…you’re blaming the victim.

          With your view, if any gun gets stolen, the owner did not secure it well enough. If my car is locked and someone breaks into it and gets a gun ..it has been stolen. I didn’t give it to them. My car is my property. Just like my home.

          • There was simply a suggestion made that they upgrade security. It’s not like they were cited for code infringement.
            If you want to get upset about something, how about the “attractive nuisance” law that says a homeowner is responsible if a kid opens an unlocked gate onto private property (trespasses) and drowns in the pool.

      • The sheriff mentioned is none other than Grady “because they ran out of bullets” Judd.

        The past few years there have been a number of local gun and pawn and gun shops hit by robberies.

        As a result, when coming around picking up pawn sheets (to see if any ‘familiar’ names or items pop up), the deputies make it a point to point out to the owners any glaring deficiencies they notice in their overall shop security.

        What pissed Judd of was that when they advised the owner of the shop the security weaknesses they noticed, the owner blew them off with an attitude.

        *That* got back to Judd.

        I’m inclined to agree with Judd’s assessment of the incident. The shop went out of their way to give the detectives that pick up the pawn paperwork an attitude when they tried to offer some advice on not being robbed.

        Judd returned the attitude, in public, and it may convince other shops to harden their businesses.

        (Judd is *very* pro 2A. He happily signs NFA paperwork…)

      • “Victims” are the prey of successful crime, banks have vaults for a reason, so to should a firearms dealership. Secured business property or funds is the cost of doing business.

        • well yeah. You should see my local jewelry store guy who I occasionally sell to. HE has a an inner sanctum/vault with millions in cowboy guns,Nazi crap,WW1 and 2 militaria.paintings and sundry goodies. Prepared is quite an understatement…

    • Agree! Hunters ethics taught in hunters ed coursed support a lower “dead animal” profile. It disrespects the animal even to hunters. It was life not a soccer trophy.

      And gunshops cannot have it both ways. You leave your Rolex on the dashboard and then complain to the overworked cops that they aren’t doing their job because crime is on the rise. So many gun store owners are their own special kind of snowflake.

    • That looked like the classic soul destroying hit by a 45 ACP. I like the Marshal but he is just a hillbilly with a YouTube channel. He, like all of us, sometimes puts personal preference over objectivity. (Not that I ever do that. /sarc)

        • The studies that try to measure the ability of a round to stop a threat all have a basic flaw. They igmore the fact that few engagements end after a single round. Most defensive firearms courses teach shoot-shoot-look better known as a double tap. If you stop your attacker with two hits how do know that the first hit wasn’t decisive? The Buckeye firearms study shows that the average number of rounds fired to produce a stop is 2.03 for the 45 ACP, the lowest number for an automatic. Two rounds per engage is an indicator that 45 ACP may be as effective as people believe.

          Average rounds fired for .38 Special and .357 are 1.7 per stop. However, since 38 Special is little better than a .380 it is, revolver slower rate fire is, as noted in the Buckeye firearms study, the likely cause of the less than two shot per stop average. I hypothesize that the revolver’s slower rate of fire effectively changes the firing doctrine ro shoot-look-shoot. If the first round stops the attacker it is likely that the defender recognizes that his target is going down and doesn’t complete the second trigger pull. For better or worse an automatic is going to be fired twice no matter what, especially if it is a SAO pistol.

        • tdi, while I suspect you may be onto something with your shoot-look-shoot hypothesis, there are a couple of other factors to figure in the equation. One, it’s very common for people to do full mag dumps and not ever remember doing it. They’ll tell police that they shot 2 or 3 roun ds when they actually shot 16. Second, even the powder-puff loads in .357 are significantly more powerful than any other common defense caliber. And three, .38 special (non +p) isn’t really more powerful than .380, but it doesn’t suffer from under-penetration like the .380. A heavier slower bullet penetrates deeper than a faster lighter one.

          That said, counting on a ‘one shot stop’ is a fool’s errand. I don’t care if you just hit the guy with 15 pellet 00, if he has a firearm in his hand he can still pull the trigger one more time.

        • I’d guess not on the headshot.

          Penetrating head wounds, even bullet wounds, bleed A LOT (granted not a great angle and he was wearing some clothes but I’d expect a bit of a pool growing there from a head shot and probably some spurting from his face). Head damage like this also often, but not always, causes some spasms which are also not present

          Just guessing I’d guess he took one center mass, maybe even a bit high, that clipped his spine or hit him in the heart. Not dead instantly but incapacitated/unconscious before/as he hit the floor and bleeding to death internally. That’s just my guess though.

        • From slowing down the video and frame-by-framing it, it appears to me that the first shot entered the perp just under his chin at an upward angle. From that point on, he was limp and headed for the floor, so the visible evidence makes it appear that the first shot took out the brain stem.

          The store owner made two successive shots lower on the body that I could tell, but I couldn’t tell you as well where they hit. The owner also took other shots towards the other perp, who got away.

        • DG:

          Damn, you really pulled out the stops on that one. I never bother slowing down video other than maybe pausing it.

          I trust your judgement on the shot placement but I would point out that to hit the actual brain stem with such a shit would require a pretty extreme upward angle. Hitting the spine lower would have the same effect, disconnecting his head from the rest of his CNS, and require a much less sharp upward angle.

          Either way, fine shooting.

        • The shooter flipped his own switch on, too. Went from zero-shooting in no time flat.

          I don’t know why someone thinks to rob the one place you can be sure people will be armed (other than maybe a police station) but this appears to have been a particularly bad place to do it.

        • I’m just guessing here because for a moment, the employee was out of frame and what we do see is not hi def. The first shot may have been the one that shattered the glass case followed by another that may have hit center mass followed by an accidental head shot as recoil during rapid fire caused the gun to climb. A disadvantage to the 45 BTW. Would need the full report to know for sure but I am no more right or wrong that anyone else speculating about the superiority of the 45.
          Another disadvantage to the gun in the video is capacity. Didn’t see a reload and I’m pretty sure the gun had only one more round left or could have been a failure of slide lock and the gun was empty. There was at least one more bad guy and the clerk was out of bullets.
          Good shooting overall and I appreciate the rapid fire counter attack. I’m going to give 100% credit to the clerk and 0% to the caliber choice.

      • I’ve been waiting for this video to be shown. I know this shop, stop by at least monthly. Word from some L E friends was dude was dead before he hit the ground(video confirmed!). Still can’t believe someone was stupid enough to try and rob Dixie, they must not have cased it. Just being around Jimmy for a few minutes most people would know not to F with him. You don’t suffer fools well after 30 years running a gun/pawn shop in a “diverse” neighborhood. Video shows how we all hope we would react when faced with the same situation. Decisive, overwhelming firepower and dead nuts accuracy! .45 FMJ is very efficient when we’ll placed!

    • That video was pretty graphic. And not because it was gory, but because in a few seconds a guy died because he made stupid choices.

      The owner of that store was a great shot.

    • I did some frame-by-frame at 13 seconds in, like Dyspeptic did.

      Let’s call the first frame with a 1911 frame zero.
      Frame one:gun on target.
      Frame two:muzzle flash. That’s right, bullet sent 1/15 second after raising gun.
      Frame eight: subject beginning to collapse. Ejected brass is still in the air. Gun starting to cycle after 2nd shot. That’s two shots in 8/30 of a second.
      Frame 15: shoots at falling perp through glass display case.

      It takes him nearly one second after firing first shot to send some lead in the second perp’s direction, he’s already running away when shots are fired at him. Pretty darn fast for a guy with white hair.

      • And after the first two shots there is little muzzle climb. Note the withdrawal and then forward press of the pistol as he moves left and around the counter.
        Great gun handling skills.
        Also note, he drew on a drawn gun, and won. That’s something so many “experts” tell us is a no win situation.

  5. The myth Japan is murder free is simply a myth the combined filter of the language barrier and mainstream media perpetuating it for its own benefits.

    The truth is Japanese cops are stupidly lazy and corrupt so massively outrageous things (multiple wounds to the back tier) are labeled suicides so they don’t need to investigate.

    • The Yakuza in particular seem to be quite clumsy (accidents) and clinically depressed (suicides)…

    • I don’t know enough to know if that’s true or not, but here’s what I do find interesting. You know how suicides and homicides involving guns are always lumped together to make a “gun violence” number? Well, if you lump together Japan’s very low homicide rate with its absurdly high suicide rate, you get a higher number than the US total, which is actually pretty average on both.

  6. Yeah, those politicians and naming bills. Affordable Care ACT, he probably didn’t want to use that as an example.

  7. I’m almost with the LA Times on this one. The HPA has been in the works for a while obviously, but post-election a name change might have been fun.

    • I would have gone with “Give gangbangers and terrorists assassin grade weaponry act”, just to watch liberal heads explode when we pass it.

  8. Self defense with a .45? That wasn’t smoke you saw after the shop owner defended himself, that was the robber’s soul dying. 🙂

    O2

    • I’ve heard that certain indigenous tribes in America believed that when you cut open an animal in the winter and the steam comes out it is it’s soul escaping. I always wondered what they thought was escaping when they took a dump in the winter.

      • Some of the soul sticks around in the flesh of an animal. After you defecate it out the rest of the animal’s soul is set free 🙂

  9. “We respect the rich tradition of hunting that many students and families share in the community,” she said. “Not every family hunts and all children have been exposed to the images. But anything that becomes a disruption to classroom we have to take that into consideration.”

    Domonique Yatsko…listen huntress, not only are you beautiful, your learning how to run with the wolves. Your better than half the girls in your school and politely ignore those who feel disrupted about your after school activities. Move silently, control your breath while knowing more than others who never get in the arena.

    Best Regards and get another deer.

  10. I thought bullying wasn’t allowed in schools these days. But I guess if you are a teacher it doesn’t apply.

    • More being a liberal/progressive/commiepig than being a teacher. Of course if you’re the latter you’re probably the former.

  11. ‘Honey, you really shouldn’t have worn such a short skirt around here.’ – That’s not really an appropriate metaphor. Should be more like, ‘Honey, if you’re going to wear that skirt out you really need to find a place to stash an LCP in it.’ If you’re going to advertise the fact that you have a lot of guns (even if they’re for sale) you should do your due diligence to keep them secure.

    ‘You know that recent report about .45 being the least effective self defense caliber?’ – I believe the report pertained to the .45 being the least ADVANTAGEOUS, not the least effective. No one doubts that getting shot with a .45 would really, really suck. But if effectiveness is your greatest concern, you should be carrying a .357.

    • IIRC, YM stated that he could find no specific advantages in the .45 round to recommend it over other, in his opinion, better calibers. He took a lot of heat for that statement, mostly from people who misinterpreted it to be that he thought .45 sucked. If you watch his video he was very clear as to his reasons and reasoning.

  12. “the DoD wants ‘biodegradable training ammunition loaded with specialized seeds to grow environmentally beneficial plants that eliminate ammunition debris and contaminants.’”

    And I want a money tree.

    • Yeah stupid commie hippy shit like this will hopefully be over in a few days, once Trump and Mattis are in charge.

      • Don’t count on it. Even in the 80s under President Reagan the EPA tortoise/bird huggers trumped ANYTHING the Army wanted to do.

        One pissant GS-0 envirowacko outranks an O-8.

    • I’m thinking it would be totally feasible to plant seeds in low velocity / low pressure rounds.

      But then I realize how much money the .gov will waste on such a project, and how many dimwit hippies will get promoted over legitimate skullcrushers, and then I’m against the project.

      • Brother, the 120mm training sabot round has a muzzle celocity of just under 1 mile per second. I can’t imagine a single organic(vegetable-based) substance that would not be utterly destroyed/incinerated on impact. That’s before we count blast envelope, launch pressure, extreme G-forces, and heat from the magnesium tracer. In addition, let’s say they somehow get it to work- now they have a friggin orchard growing in the center of every target on every range DOD-wide. Then we’d have to shut down and build new ranges and start all over again OR we could burn even more training time that we simply do not have to go perform additional maintenance on these ranges by cutting yet more weeds. This might be the most ridiculously wasteful/idiotic project since the DOD introduced mandatory SHARP, transgender integration, and EO training. Hell-fire, I’m an Officer and I can see how stupid this is!

        • The 40mm Mk19 is pictured. The rounds are longer and higher pressure than the 40mm M203 rounds. Still the 40mm round from a Mk19 is only about 790 FPS. I shot the Mk19 and the M203 as a USMC 0311, so I do know what I’m talking about.

          So my statements are still accurate. I’m perfectly aware that sub-caliber sabot rounds haul ass.

          The project is still a waste of time and money.

    • Phytoremediation can be done on soils with surficial metals contamination with the right plants (e.g., locoweeds, milkvetches, certain grasses, etc.) and the right, controlled, conditions. But, I think it’s best implemented after the range area ceases to be used and the UXO folks clear it. Then you can go in there and properly apply some ag sci and do it right, rather than this haphazard way of “planting” seeds that may not work out. With phyto you’re dealing with local environment/climate, careful species selection, etc. It’s not one size fits all, and it’s best to reduce the amount of uncontrolled variables, and I’ve got some experience with this because I’ve implemented it at a few cleanup projects, although it’s not my forte.

  13. The store is responsible for the actions of criminals and should prevent them from committing crimes by making such crimes impossible… riiiiiight.

    As for the silencers. What’s the point in the HPA anyway? All the geniuses on YouTube keep telling me that suppressors are loud as shit! They know, they’ve “tried them”. ROFL!

    • I’d personally like it if my tinnitus didn’t get any worse. I’ve always doubled up on hearing protection when I’ve gone shooting, but I’ve also always shot at indoor ranges, in bays next to ARs, 12 gauges, .500 S&Ws, whatever. My ears have always rung a little more after a range session. I realize that not everyone will run out and get suppressors if the HPA passes, but if more people do, then my ears will suffer less.

  14. Biodegradeable training ammo? After a few mins thought, not a silly idea. Training ranges are basically superfund toxic sites after years of use. Lead, paints, plastic, depleated Uranium,etc. So using a non metal/ non plastic projectile would help cut the land damage.

    • in six months the range will be either too overgrown to reclaim/clean lead from as easily (& will be plowed up doing anyway) or the same dry desert scape it was to start with. Gun ranges tend to be placed where stuff wasn’t growing so clearing is not necessary, and the function of a range requires nothing bigger than grass be present. I’m not seeing how the seed aspect is helping anything, but the biograding aspect *might* be useful. We’ve done 90% of the work by ditching lead FMJ, though.

  15. “Last year’s Windy City murder rate was even worse than you thought . . . Chicago Homicides Even Higher Than Reported”

    Homicide is not the same thing as murder, which largely explains the numbers. Justified killings are still homicides but will not be counted in the ‘murder’ stats.

  16. Public schools, and private schools for the most part, are about teaching conformity and compliance to the state to impressionable children. The zero tolerance gun policies and mandatory vaccine programs are 2 elephant in the room examples.

    • Parents need to complain viciously, just like they did with that “gender unicorn ” lesson plan until it was taken away. It’s unfortunate if you have to send your kid to the cesspool that is public school, but you do still have a say to a degree.

  17. Wait until the DOD meets the BLM for spreading a noxious or invasive species with their mortars. Plants are regional and ammunition is standardized. Do you really want to plant trees or shrubs in an impact area to impede visual of the target?

  18. “The owner of the store, Ben Pollock Jr, pledged several hours after Judd’s news conference to have an armed guard there at all times. But he stopped short of agreeing to put in a safe, citing the cost.”

    In the long run, is a 24/7 armed guard really cheaper than a safe?

    I suspect the shop is going to end up with a safe anyway, once his insurance company tells him his new rate quote.

  19. Re: “The city posted a decades-high homicide count of 812 in 2016, per the Cook County Medical Examiner’s office. That’s 15% greater than the 762 murders reported by the city’s police department.”

    I typically read that about half of all violent crime in the U.S. goes unreported.. CBS News is my source here. That doubles my reason to carry a gun too — your violent crime risk is twice as bad as is commonly realized.

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