Columbus Police Swat Snipers are checking out a new kind of ammunition that is designed to be safer for bystanders and hostages during hostage situations. When those occasions arise, police are often faced with suspects that are behind some form of bullet-resistant glass, and firing conventional rifle rounds through it can result in fragmentation of the round or spalling of the glass to the detriment of all who are behind it, without regard to innocence. The new round is designed to penetrate the glass without shattering it or breaking up itself. The round appears to be effective against both the very thick plastic that you might find in a convenience store and . . .

against car windshields, where it punches right through without any separation whatsoever. The article says it “stays intact until it meets the intended target,” but given the bullet’s appearance of being a turned piece of solid metal, I’m not sure it does any breaking up at that point either.

Your Lockdown of the Day™ comes from Lexington County, South Carolina. Midway Elementary School was locked down for about three hours on Wednesday morning due to a man out squirrel hunting. A school bus driver spotted a man carrying a shotgun in a wooded area near the school, and told a school administrator about the sighting. “In an abundance of caution,” the sheriff’s department asked the school to go on lockdown at about 9:30 a.m. Several hours later, authorities located the man, who was lawfully hunting squirrels with the shotgun on private property. According to the article, the man netted two squirrels, no students were injured, and the sheriff’s department continues to investigate. [h/t Tom in Oregon]

A student in Grand Island, New York was made to serve a one day in-school suspension recently after he refused to change his shirt when administrators objected to it. The shirt “depicted his support of the NRA and the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.” Administrators told him to change shirts, or turn his inside out, as it apparently ran afoul of some section of the dress code, though it was unclear if that was the part about “disrupt[ing] or interfer[ing] with the educational process” or the part about things that might “encourage … violent activities.” The student’s father said, “They said it was the guns.” When the student told administrators he’d rather not turn his shirt inside out, that found him in violation of the section that states: “Any student who refuses to do so or who… fails to comply shall be subject to discipline.” So he wasn’t suspended for wearing the NRA/2A tshirt, he was suspended for not complying when he was told to get rid of it. His mom said while she thinks the school overreacted, he probably will not wear shirts like that again. “He can hold firmly to his beliefs but for those 7 hours a day, five days a week he’s in school, you have to kind of follow their rules like it or not. But he’ll move on, he’ll graduate, and probably serve our country and wear lots of shirts like that,” she said.

Gun rights advocates are supporting a bill before Massachusetts lawmakers that would treat anyone who uses a fake gun during a crime the same as someone who uses a real weapon. According to the head of the Gun Owners Action League, the law is needed due to a recent rise in police-involved shootings of suspects with fake weapons. To me, this seems like a self-solving problem. If it looks like a gun, it’s going to be treated like a gun, and I’m not sure why a law is necessary to say so.

How do you prove you didn’t break the law, if the evidence that you were allowed to do it is secret? That’s the dilemma facing a California man right now, who is accused of illegally building hundreds of untraceable silencers under a secret contract with the navy. Court records indicate that race-car mechanic Mark Landersman was paid $1.7 million in 2012 to build 347 suppressors, and Judge Leonie Brinkema suggested that there may be classified evidence that shows that Landersman had legitimate, but off the record, authorization to manufacture them, which would severely impact the prosecution’s ability to prove their case.

More from SHOT Show and Richard Ryan, the SureFire 2211 Wristband Light/Luminox Watch. I can’t decide if it’s really awesome, or “never want to be seen wearing that” horrible.

 
It’s .50 cal Friday (on a Thursday) at Demolition Ranch. This week, they perforate a steel I-beam with extreme prejudice.

Those solid brass bullets remind me of the “hostage safe” rounds from the lead story.

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR

106 COMMENTS

  1. Armor piercing ammo labeled “Hostage Safe”. Reminds me when Hollow points were called “Controlled Expansion Projectiles.” All BS.

    And yes, that surefire watch is Fugly. But it might be enough to deflect that “Hostage Safe Ammo”.

      • Because she’s teaching her kid to sell out his values to fit in. She’s keeping in public school, which requires “compliance” and “conformity” to social conventions in direct contrast with things he believes in, and in fact does not get the promised return on staying in said school.

        • He WHO believes in? It sounds as if you’re talking about his he-Mom. Who is his she-Mom?

        • Huh? Okay, seriously? You can’t read that sentence and see it’s a typo and use your brain to infer the “he” that was inadvertently left out?

          Come on.

          “She” = Mom, and any “he” = her kid.

          Feel better? Want a cookie? Or, I’ll look to see if I have some life savers.

        • I kinda thought you meant that the mom was the problem because she was encouraging him to “serve his country”.

        • Barstow, I can’t say what Albaniaaaa meant, but that’s how I took the comment…that the Mom was “enabling” this statist crap and encouraging her child to sell his beliefs in exchange for belonging to the school.

          My opinion is that the right answer would have been to pull the kid out of that school. But, I’m already a homeschooler, so I guess that’s easy for me to say.

        • The right thing is for the kid to keep wearing that shirt to school every day. in-school suspension takes away resources at the school from other places, since they still have to educate and “house the prisoner” for the time he is there. Also his classmates should be en-masse protesting by wearing the same or similar shirts. It’s time for the kids to rally and fight… their parents have failed.

        • The best solution would be to have a t-shirt with the NRA pro-gun message on the inside and the outside. Then the kid is in compliance with the request to turn the shirt inside out without giving up the shirt’s message. This solution reminds me of bullet buttons and the silly looking stocks on New York rifles…

      • The whole, “well you have to follow the rules!” attitude that is so prevalent in our school system and with parents. The fact that schooling is compulsory and a government institution should force them to abide by the constitution wherever applicable. I mean… the fact that they are compulsory is arguably unconstitutional but ignore that for the sake of this argument lol

        Generally this attitude doesn’t go away when the kid gets older, it becomes part of his/her worldview. “If the authorities demand it we just have to follow the rules!”

        • Exactly… The “their property, their rules” does not apply when you’re FORCED to be there for no reason other than your age. Sure, maybe rich people can afford to pull their kids out of public school and put them into a private school, but that means the rest of us are just stuck with this totalitarian environment where rights do not exist.

        • “Sure, maybe rich people can afford to pull their kids out of public school and put them into a private school, but that means the rest of us are just stuck with this totalitarian environment where rights do not exist.”

          False dichotomy. Public School vs Private School are not your only two choices.

          Proper education of your children is not a ‘rich vs poor’ thing. For example, I know homeschooling parents that have made TREMENDOUS sacrifices in lifestyle to gain the freedom to homeschool.

          Further, there are groups that are actively trying to make ‘cost’ (or more accurately ‘perceived cost’) of school choice a non-barrier.

          Don’t drink the Kool-Aid the education establishment (interestingly, pretty much the same people that comprise the civilian disarmament establishment) sells that you can’t afford anything but public school.

          THAT IS A LIE.

          And, stripped to its logical base, it’s the exact same kind of lie “they” tell to get us to not own guns. We don’t need to educate | protect ourselves, we have SCHOOLS | POLICE to do it for us.

          There are many options beside public schools…depending on where you live. Like gun laws, the schooling laws are very State specific, but it’s worth looking into if you have children and do NOT want them in public school.

        • I plan on homeschooling (with a focus on free learning… not curriculum based) myself.

        • “Unschooling” is a term used a lot for non-curriculum based…it’s an unfortunate name. It basically means ‘student led’ in the sense that you tailor lessons around what the student wants to study rather than forcing them to follow an externally defined path.

          It is VERY effective in our experience. Good luck!

        • Yup, unschooling it is. I just don’t like using the term because it gives off a “let my kids do whatever they want whenever and act like animals” vibe to most publicly educated people. Free learning has a more acceptable air to it for most.

  3. The .50 Barnes bore rider series projo’s are solid bronze. They are exceptionally accurate.
    When shooting my 1″ thick steel, not only do they coat the crater with bronze, it petals out like a flower. They make cool decorations. Even my wife likes them.

    • You’re suggesting they’re shooting .50 cals? I don’t think so; that could take out a “hostile”, and someone in another home. Or two.

      • No. My bad.
        Referencing the .50 cal Friday video. I think it was a Barnes 647 grain bronze they were shooting

    • Naw, DU rounds are for tanks. They are fine, but when fired the dust they create inside the tanks is toxic AND flammable. Unless you are hunting tanks, then your good!

      • Yeah, they’re toxic because they’re RADIOACTIVE. Just as inhaled radon (a gas produced by the decay of radium in the soil) will nasty kill you, way down the road. One inhaled speck of a radioisotope will nearly always kill you of cancer within 10-20 years.

        And I do believe I’ve read of DU ammunition being used. I forget if it was the Gulf, or Bosnia/Kosovo or what. Does anyone else remember this?

        • The US used DU as a penetrator in nearly everything 20mm on up, including some fragmenting explosives, during the late 1980s/early 90s. Nasty shit. It has been replaced with various concoctions of tungsten alloys.

          A shitload of other countries have or still do use it.

        • It’s not really the radioactivity but the heavy metal poisoning that gets you. The “depleted” part means it has less radioactivity than natural uranium. You’ll get more rads from the sun standing next to the tank than you do from DU. But, inhaling the dust from the spalling is like drinking liquid mercury. It does bad thing to your innards.

        • Radon is usually produced by the decay of naturally occurring uranium and thorium in the Earth’s crust. It can also come from radium, but radium itself usually comes from uranium in the crust as well.

  6. And law enforcement needs a bullet like that exactly how often? How frequently have they had to shoot through glass in a “hostage” situation?

    The capricious spending of the taxpayer monies continues apace, throwing money at solutions that are in a frantic search for an actual problem.

  7. Holy underwear, Batman!
    That supressor deal comes out to $4,899 per supressor.
    Where do I sign up to make secret squirrel stuff for the navy? That’s almost as good as a 700 dollar hammer!

    • There are testing costs as well as manufacturing costs. Testing costs are an exorbitant percentage of ALL gov’t procurements.

      • And, really, it’s an understandable cost. At least for the manufacturer. Mil-specs are LOADED with crap that doesn’t make any bit of difference to the actual function of a finished product, and they’re expensive to comply with. If someone in the gummint would pare back the specs to what they actually need the costs would go down significantly.

        I know we used to mark up our contract parts significantly because compliance was a PITA.

      • I was on and air force base a few years ago and got to see the flow chart used for procurement. Looked like something out of MAD magazine and left me wondering how our military buys anything.

      • He left out a ‘p’ not an ‘r.’ If you’re gonna correct people, make sure your rite.

        On second thought, please just stop. Please stop correcting every simple typo or misplaced letter you see. It’s really annoying, and it’s not endearing you to anyone. If it doesn’t affect the ability to comprehend what is being said, please leave it alone.

        • Matt… I am sorry, but I do come come here to “endear” myself to you. And you continuing to harp on this is conduct unbecoming of a moderator.

          Do your job. Which is not conducting a vendetta against my personality.

          • I don’t give a damn what you think is becoming or not. I am doing my job. Pedantic comments for no other reason than to correct single letter typos (and doing so incorrectly, even better) is not contributory and a waste of everyone else’s time to have to constantly read them. I’m asking you to stop correcting if it doesn’t affect the ability to comprehend the comment. Next time instead of asking I’ll just delete your nitpicky correction and move on, thus saving us all the trouble of having this asinine conversation.

            • I do honestly believe you think it’s your job. I suppose if you think it is, it is. And if I think I’m a Royal Canadian Kilted Yaksman, then I must be one.

              I want you to remember that you made sport of me because I studied the JFK assassination for years and years. And published a newsletter about it, which has many scholarly subscribers to it. AND studied Watergate, which you said was nonsense here.

              Tell me, is THAT the type of conduct befitting of a moderator? Ridiculing scholarship as useless activity?

              I’m gonna need you to be a man and grow up.

  8. Help me out with this. In the SureFire watch/light, the lamp is on the right face of the watch. So if dominant left hand is holding the pistol/etc., the light is more or less pointing upwards.

    If dominant right head, it’s pretty much the same thing. What am I missing here? It seems to me that no matter which hand you’re using, the light is going to be shining in about a 90-degree angle to where you’re shooting.

    And locking down a school for a squirrel hunter? In SOUTH CAROLINA? That’s NOT stupidity…. that’s called MIND CONTROL!

    • Hold your hands out in front of you as in an isosceles pistol stance. Now imagine that watch on your left wrist. Seems about right to me.

      It’s still a butt-ugly watch, though.

      • Yeah, thanks. I think I see it. Thanks for clearing that up for me. I was having trouble visualizing it.

    • So… it mocks me. I post about a vanished post, and it magically appears. Time for bed.

  10. These ‘new’ bullets sound very much like the Norma African PH Solid Brass Monometal .375 bullets I use. What’s the real difference, I wonder?

    In a standard loading these bullets carry the momentum of .338 Lapua rounds for the first 100 yards, though they don’t have the velocity.

    • The real difference is that they found a existing product that works great for something else, and they are getting the Gov to buy the new toys at a price that would make a bean counter weep. With our tax money.

  11. The title says, in part: “help PROTEST bystanders” now there’s a thought provoking Freudian slip if I ever saw one! Actually frightening IMHO! Would love to know who wrote it.

    • It means that when they are called to shoot at protesters, the bystanders should not worry unless the are behind the protesters, in a physical nature.

  12. the SureFire 2211 Wristband Light/Luminox Watch. I can’t decide if it’s really awesome, or “never want to be seen wearing that” horrible.

    Both! I’d never wear it…it’s far too bulky for everyday use…but it is cool in a Dick Tracy sort of way!

  13. Regarding the squirrel-hunting “terrorist”…
    and the sheriff’s department continues to investigate.

    Given that this is South Carolina, I’m betting that’s code for “y’all, you ain’t NEVER seen this many squirrels in one place this time of year, get over heah and shoot some as soon as y’all get off shift!”

    • I have been squirrel hunting, but never squirrel hunting in the south. Is a shotgun the preferred tool? Because “pink mist” comes to mind….

      • Really tall trees, really big squirrels. Not much damage. Good eating. There are places, like Ohio and large parts of WV that ban rifles for hunting. Population density. Fire a .22 upwards and who knows where it’ll land?

        I watched my dad headshoot 6 squirrels with 6 rounds from a .22. It was legal in the county we were hunting in. I had a double biden 20 and got zilch. Never even fired a shot.

  14. “In an abundance of caution”. Anyone else sick of phrases like that? Damn double speak all the time. Why can’t they just say “We flipped our shit this morning and totally overreacted and wasted everyone’s time and money. Sorry ’bout that.”

    Meanwhile, at an undisclosed location, out of an abundance of caution I wore two pairs of under britches today. Cuz safety.

    😛

    • I’ve asked cops why they talk funny, like “a high rate of speed” and they all blame the lawyers. “Going like a raped ape” is fine with me. Maybe that’s why I get kicked off jury duty.

      • Lawyers are responsible for a lot of things that are wrong. But CopSpeak isn’t one of them.

        The reason they talk like that is they think it makes them sound “authoritative”.

        What a reeking load of BS.

        • Yup. That’s why pretentious people “purchase” something, while you and I “buy” it.

          • Keyboard protectors! And they “examine” their prospective “purchases”, while we “take a gander” at ’em.

      • Purchase hell, I got me a gun. Or as Woody Allen would say, a gub. (from “Take the Money and Run”).

    • Yeah that should be OVER-abundance of caution.

      but at the same time:

      “According to the article, the man netted two squirrels, no students were injured, and the sheriff’s department continues to investigate.”

      Continues to investigate WHAT exactly? How much over-time we can pull out of this? It’s for the Children afterall.

      • Well, it’s a HELL of a lot safer and easier than investigating ACTUAL CRIMES.

        All you LEOs here: sorry, but the truth is the truth… is the truth.

        Y’know… “combat stress” and all….

    • Because government schools today run on estrogen. Not a pair to be found in the typical administration suite. Thru the 80s the schools were run by WWII vets. When they retired the braindead flowerchildren took over.

      “LOCKDOWN” & “ACTIVE SHOOTER” – by and for morons.

  15. If it looks like a gun, it’s going to be treated like a gun, and I’m not sure why a law is necessary to say so.

    Because in single-party Democratic fiefdoms, there must be a law to control everything. A new tax will inevitably follow the new law.

    • I’m wondering about the part where if it looks like a gun and is used in a crime then it’s treated like a gun. If they mean by police then this makes sense, if they mean by the courts this could get interesting. Picture a teenager with an airsoft gun being charged with attempted murder or aggravated assault for shooting a playmate with it while both are trespassing. The shooter is ‘committing a crime’ (trespassing), wouldn’t this then make the gun ‘real’?

      What about a child out after curfew (a status crime) with a toy gun in a back pack. Is the child now unlawfully carrying a concealed deadly weapon?

      The examples and the concern may seem absurd but it’s unsafe to ever assume that nothing this stupid could become an actual legal quandary for someone, particularly in the lunatic blue states.

      I haven’t read the text of the law yet and perhaps it mitigates these concerns, still, unintended consequences and all. . .

    • Possibly, it’s because other legislation uses the presence of a firearm as a sentencing enhancer. You may get an additional 10 years for a crime committed with a firearm. I wonder if someone skipped out on that due to it not being a real firearm?

    • Because THEN they wouldn’t have to feel bad when they shoot old people getting canes out the back of their trucks…

      He commited a crime (speeding)! With a Level 2 Firearm Look-alike! Shoot him now!!!!!

  16. If there’s new ammo to help protest bystanders, I’m all for it. I have to protest bystanders all the time and they just keep getting in the way.

  17. Jesus, do police even wear normal uniforms anymore? Do they need digi-cam… I fear them now, in my rear view mirror, in a store, seeing a group of them eating at a restaurant. I don’t feel safe or reassured, I wonder what will trigger them targeting me. I think the last boundary line they will cross is crew served weapons. Which department will come up with a reason to field a SAW or M240? I fear it’s coming.

    • I see you also see that this isn’t an unreasonable fear. Thanks for not being in a trance of some sort, as most Americans seem to be. But I do see that more and more are waking up every day.

      Can’t you see the wonder at your feet
      Your life’s complete
      Follow me down

      Can’t you see me growing, get your guns
      The time has come
      To follow me down

      Follow me across the sea
      Where milky babies seem to be
      Molded, flowing revelry
      With the one that set them free

      Follow me down
      – The Doors

  18. “shows that Landersman had legitimate, but off the record, authorization to manufacture them…”

    That seems like it’s part of the problem, to me. If the government wants to purchase suppressors for the seals, that’s fine, but it should not be quite so ‘off the record.’ Maybe the citizens in a republic should know where these normally tightly-controlled dangerous objects are going and who is using them?

    • I suspect the reason for all the cloak and dagger action was intended to give the US plausible deniability in the event these suppressors turned up someplace where they might be embarrassing. That is, if they were left behind or captured after some secret SEAL mission that the govt would rather not admit it authorized or participated in.

      • Its called unserialized gear if they really are worried about being secret squirrel. And this all comes down to this guy got the contract due to having a family member who was command(but not a seal) get it for him. Somehow they did it in a completely fucked up way but apparently legal. Its why its such a mess.

      • We used to call it “sterile” gear. Nothing that could be traced to a specific country or org. All stuff that was on the world market and proved nothing if taken.

  19. I am unclear why gun rights advocates are supporting such a bill. Whether it is a good shoot or not, at least in every law I have ever read, depends on what the cop/ person defending himself/another reasonably believed, not what was actually the case. If I make a credible threat and you act accordingly, you are fine.

    On the other hand, when it is all said and done and the man is in custody, then isn’t there a difference between assault with a deadly weapon and assault with a toy? In both cases, the guy is guilty of inciting fear of life for some bad reason, but doesn’t the mens rea differ between actions where there is no intent to commit bodily harm but merely an intent to create a belief in such, and an intent where there is a willingness to carry it through?

    Both are criminal, but the man who is truly armed should be treated differently (more harshly) because he was actually willing to carry through on threats.

    • I suspect this law is to keep people from committing armed robbery in the eyes of the victims but merely robbery in the eyes of the law. There are several crimes that are considered to be more severe / punishable by the presence of a firearm. This law may be intended to make sure the criminal doesn’t get away with having weapons violations on his record due to deception.

    • Well we can’t have kids in public schools understanding and supporting the Constitution, it disrupts the narrative.

    • Both links are of the same photo. Inciting to riot, right? If they demanded I take that off, I’d pull it over my legs and crotch, and go shirtless the remainder of the day. Effing fascists.

  22. Right but how does the new ammo perform against dogs and Grandpa’s? And even more importantly, does it come in tacticool-mall-ninja colors? Does it come with any tacticool pouches that the officers can strap onto their tacticool vests or SWAT pants? Are they MRAP friendly? On long days of “us vs them”, it is important that all these factors are present for maximum synergy.

    • I’ve seen Grandpa’s. Scared me half to death! It’s about yea long:_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________.

    • “Look, John, we can’t have you running around out there killing innocent dogs.”

      “There are no friendly dogs!”

Comments are closed.