A giant anti-gun billboard in Boston is coming down. The 250-foot-long billboard (above) has occupied the side of a parking garage near Fenway Park for 19 years, displaying various gun control messages. Most recently, it promoted a federal assault weapons ban, and had an electronic counter displaying the number of Americans killed by guns (45,000, irrespective of method/mode, of course) since the December 2012 Newtown shooting. The billboard is coming down because the parking garage was sold to the parent company of the Boston Red Sox, and part of the sale . . .
agreement was that the billboard must be removed by March of next year. The owner hopes to find an equally visible place to relocate the billboard, which is currently seen by some 150,000 vehicles per day.
Your Lockdown of the Day™ comes from Fairfield, Stockton, England, and it’s actually an evacuation. A student brought in some old ammunition to show his history class, and police were called and the building cleared. But this wasn’t any old ammunition. He’d been diving over the weekend and found some old military ammunition on the seabed. That stuff can be pretty unstable, so the precautions would seem to be warranted in this case. The ammunition was discovered upon investigation to be damaged wartime shells, and was removed safely. Still, made for an interesting afternoon, I’m sure.
A gun buy-up in Freehold, NJ over the weekend yielded 359 firearms, including 59 semi-automatic handguns, 157 revolvers, 52 shotguns, 56 rifles, and best of all, five assault weapons. You ready for the list of assault weapons? A MAC-10 with sound suppressor and high-capacity magazines; an SKS Soviet military-style semi-automatic weapon with fixed bayonet; a Marlin Model 99 .22-cal. Rifle; an Arsenal SLR-95 AK-47 reproduction model; and an M-1 carbine military assault rifle. Scary stuff, those.
From The Tactical Wire – Armament Systems and Procedures (ASP), one of the most respected names in law enforcement products, is now shipping the innovative new LockWrite Pen. This patented, fully funtional writing instrument is combined with a heat treated, ASP quality, handcuff key. The LockWrite Pen is the brainchild of Officer Travis Roemmele, a working police officer in Riverdale, NJ and an ASP Handcuff Instructor. Roemmele’s innovative idea combines two commonly used tools of the public safety professional into one safe, convenient means to carry and access a handcuff key.The handcuff key is ASP’s strongest. It’s made with heat treated, polished and plated 4140 steel – the same alloy used in ASP’s most durable batons. The unique design of the LockWrite Pen makes it easy to switch between the tactical and practical functions. With just a click, police officers can slide the cartridge to write or retract the ink cartridge to use the handcuff key.
tnoutdoors9 is one of my top go-to sources for ammo reviews, but occasionally he branches out and looks at other things. Here’s his review of the SureFire P2X Fury Tactical flashlight. This review shows the same attention to detail that those of you familiar with his ammo videos will recognize and appreciate.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GMjhBNxwUrY
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When was the building sold, or will be sold? If it’s before March next year, why isn’t the billboard being taken down sooner?
If they’re calling for a reinstituted AWB on the billboard they’re a little late to the party in that everyone bought them in ’04 or 2013. There are untold millions out there now. What’s a new one going to accomplish? Yeah, I know, nothing. I’m just asking ‘why bother?’
I forgot the link to the original story, so that’s fixed now. It does not say when the sale was finalized, or even when the new owners take possession, only that the sign has to be down by next March. Perhaps it was an immediate sale, but one clause of the contract was to give him a period of time to relocate his sign.
My experience is that when sales/deals are done, existing contracts and leases are honored. Depends a lot on what the contracts say, of course, but new owners typically do not turn off existing revenue streams. They may (depending on contract terms) even be required to honor them. But, they only honor them for the duration of the original contract. Then they review them and re-negotiate terms.
My educated guess is that the space is undervalued with a political sign there. They could get a lot more money putting a sign with a major endorsement/marketing deal. The new owners are “silent” about renewing the anti-gun sign which I interpret to mean: they are going to solicit offers and the highest one (most revenue) will get a marketing deal. Probably if the anti-gunner can meet the terms for a long term high-revenue deal, they will renew. My guess, again, is that they can’t. Someone like Nike (as an example) can not only offer more money, but is more likely to be around in 10 years to make the payments.
I doubt this has anything to do with the new owners (Fenway Sports) being pro or anti gun, its just about the benjamins.
If moms demand took credit for taking down a billboard a while back (either Daniel Defense or BumpFire, I think, and really the contract just expired) why cant we claim anti gunners are not popular, sided with the NRA, and claim victory.
Well…. Mothers Who Demand Crap From Others just took credit for not allowing open carry on military bases so I see no reason why we can use this little item in the same way and take credit for restoring rights to individuals. We could even claim 90% support for having the sign removed!
“SKS Soviet military-style semi-automatic weapon with fixed bayonet.”
Wow. Talk about a mouthful.
The word they were clumsily searching for is RIFLE.
SKS stands for “Samozaryadniy Karabin Simonova” — Simonov’s Self-Loading Carbine.
So bothering to call it a Semi-automatic is actually redundant.
Since when is an M1 Carbine an assault rifle? Is that why OneBigAssMistakeAmerica wrote an executive order so we can’t get back Garands, Carbines, and 1903’s?
Well to use the anti’s logic it’s because it goes bang.
Well, the M-1 Carbine was used during numerous beach and aerial ‘assaults’ during WWII in both the European and Pacific island hopping campaigns.
As for the blocks on re-importing surplus Garands, I seem to remember a counterpoint article that showed the South Koreans wanted to sell them back to the US. Since they were on LOAN to Korea, the Koreans had no right to sell them back to the rightful owner. Hence, the block of sale. Now, would the administration allow their rightful return without paying? I don’t know, but I wouldn’t hold my breath.
I was under the impression they were blocking them from re-importation on the grounds they were ‘assault weapons’? Hadn’t heard anything about them being ‘on loan’ to the SK army. That does make some sense. I just hadn’t heard that being used as a justification.
I suppose the M2s are technically assault rifles, they’re select fire rifles chambered in an intermediate calibre and fed from detachable box magazines, but the M1 just doesn’t fit the bill.
It’s definitely an assault weapon by the Shannon Watts definition: 10 rounds per minute (http://bearingarms.com/moms-demand-founder-declared-every-gun-an-assault-weapon/). Of course, that makes every modern gun an assault weapon, but from her view that’s a feature, not a bug.
I can fire a bolt action that fast, while still being (somewhat) accurate. Not bragging, just observing. If it ain’t a single shot, it is an “Assault weapon” according to their logic.
I can fire 10 rounds from my bolt action Rem700 in under 40s. And that includes taking the time to get decent groups (2-3″ @ 200y). And I don’t think Shannon would call that an assault rifle.
Although…it does have a scary black KRG Whiskey-3 chassis and a suppressor mount, so maybe it is an evil assault rifle.
Its only an assault rifle if it has the shoulder thingie that goes up! GOSH!
Nope, not an assault weapon, a sniper rifle. And the only reason to have those is to kill presidents!
Wait a minute, It’s only an assault weapon if it shoots 10 rnd/min… Is that theoretical or actual rate of fire? Does that mean that any firearm looses its status as an assault weapon as long as it doesn’t surpass that rate of fire? She left out all the traditional indicators like: black, pistol grip, folding stock, “high cap” mag. Maybe that means that they are abandoning all that and going with, “It’s only an assault weapon if and when you pull the trigger faster then 10 times in a minute.” In which case problem solved, everyone just has to remember to shoot nice and slow.
Wow! What a racist, are you saying that my friend* is an “assault weapon”?
*my (human) friend is black, to clarify things.
So, if firing 10 rounds per minute makes it an “assault weapon”, what about if it’s also military-style and can attack a bayonet? Is that a “SUPER assault weapon”?
Methinks my Mosin-Nagant just got a WHOLE lot cooler.
So SKS rifles with their 10 round fixed magazines are evil assault rifles now. WTF.
This is where I beat my chest and scream MOLON LABE.
Hell I made my EXTRA evil by attaching one of those 20 round red star mags!
That’s old news. Fienstien named the SKS by name in her 2013 proposed assault weapons ban, you know to ban it because it was an assault rifle…. From that day fourth. I love trying to imagine the logic of a mind that tries to ban things for being things they aren’t.
OK, now, HOLT UP!
“A two-day gun buy back program…brought in 359 guns…”
“Five Assault Weapons, 216 Handguns Voluntarily Surrendered Will Be Destroyed”
216 + 5 = 221
What happened to the other 138 guns? Cops’ personal collections just got a bit bigger, methinks.
Also: “The two-day program disbursed $25,100”
$25,100 / 359 = $69.92
Who the F#@k sells an Arsenal or an M1 for $70 and where can I meet them?!?
How much are you going to bet that someone’s going to loose their mind next time they crack open their gun safe?
Gramps won’t be opening his safe again. His kids had him committed.
Err, in reference to the M1 and the Arsenal that is.
it makes me cry. And those are just the 5 guns they condescended to identify for us because they are “assault rifles” imagine what other ‘diamonds in the rough’ could have been included in the revolvers alone. Beautiful, valuable, maybe even historic, machines that someone just tossed away for scrap prices because the didn’t know or worse were afraid. Afraid of a machine.
Just sit back and have a moment of silence for all the Colt 1911 M1s, Trophy Lugers, or Winchester lever guns, that could have met their end in one of these stupid buy-ups that no one even bothered or cared to mention.
The answer that immediately comes to mind is “a thief”.
I just saw that billboard for the first time on Sunday when I was headed home from the walk for cystic fibrosis in Cambridge. I don’t often travel the pike from Boston west to 128 so it caught me by surprise. I immediately started muttering and shaking my head. My wife asked what’s wrong and I began a tirade about people’s stupidity and their willingness to just believe what their told. Needless to say the two little ones in the back agreed just because I’m dad.
Freehold has some sketchy areas, so chances are good most of those guns were stolen. They probably came from some of the surrounding towns, free money and all. It’s also pretty cool to see another NJ town in the news, with that pen invention. Neat idea I guess, but a good price for it, so congrats to the Riverdale police officer.
Always hated that billboard… good riddance.
A Marlin 99? Assault rifle?
Good grief.
These people would sh!t bricks if they saw reality.
Holds more than 15 rounds. Welcome to New Jersey.
Also an old gun — the predecessor of the Marlin Model 60, if memory serves. They only made those for a couple of years in the late ’50s before they were modified and turned into the Model 60.
Can’t say about that myself. But I had a Glenfield Model 60. Same thing as a Marlin. She held 18 rounds.
If that billboard were in Virginia, the counter would have to be set to count the ever-growing number of bullet holes in it.
In New Mexico, also. In Taos, there is a “NO DUMPING” sign I know of that now has so many holes in it, it’s difficult to read. It’s ventilated.
Oh, and there’s dumping there, too.
I hated that sign when I had to drive through Boston a few times. Whoever paid to put that sign up is a total idiot.
How would a federal assault weapons ban do anything when only approximately 50 people per year die from those kind of weapons when I did the math.
I could swear we had one of those fancy AW bans at some point… have to wonder how there were any murders at all in those years!
The sign…find the power source and destroy it.when they fix it ..do it again! Bb or pellet gun the lights rotate places to knock out and people doing it.Get the ACLU agsinst it and involved .Get hackers to change the message.Pay taggers to tag it.They would probably do it for freeYou get the picture just some simple fun.
The gun buy back? More stupidity from liberal stupid police.More waste
of taxpayer monies while police cherry pick guns for their own collections.Show us these being destroyed!! You can t cause you don t!!
Lock down..ok …so?
LockWrite Pen…cool!
I’m sad that’s 1 more M1 Carbine that’s being destroyed and I want one of those, and a Winchester model 97 trench gun (pref w/bayonet). Now that’s another one I won’t be able to get.
“There is one gun for every 12 people in the world. The question is, how do we arm the other 11.” – Favorite movie opening.
Main problem I see with the shoot is he didn’t identify his target (having a light helps) and he didn’t give a warning or anything. He just saw movement in his hard garage and fired blindly.
While it may be okay legally I doubt I could live with doing something like that.
M-1 Carbine is on NJ’s banned weapons list. SKS with fixed 10 round mag ok(so far.) Nutty state.
Saw this nonsense every trip I made to Boston. It won’t be missed.
Put up the Gecko or beer ads, Sam Adams would be an improvement
Why do I never hear about these buybacks before they happen? I have some old broken crap I wouldn’t mind swapping for cash.
I noticed the handprint on the left side of the billboard. My first impression was that the “Black Hand” of the Mafia was the sponsor of the propaganda.
I speculated the following:
—- That since Prohibition was ended, the Mob was then compensated for that loss of revenue by the later outlawing of narcotics and drugs of all sorts
—- Now there is much talk, and some action, to legalize marijuana
—- That movement toward legalization of drugs could be as financially disastrous to the Mob as Repeal was
—- They may be hoping and working toward a substitute market in illegal guns to replace the drug trade.
But of course that’s foolish. Everybody knows “There is no Mafia”.
If the NRA were to operate like Moms Demanding some sort of Action (wink, wink), they would claim to have achieved victory in getting the offending billboard removed. Fortunately the NRA has scruples….
Unfortunately, the NRA has scruples.
Fixed.
Only way to win this war is to fight fire with fire. Politeness and scruples, two concepts obsolete in this day and age, will land us politely into the loser’s corner.
The owner of that billboard, John Rosenthal, is one of the most anti-gun people in Massachusetts, and that is saying something. I have personally heard speak in favor of police inspections of homes, submission of medical records to own guns. He wants anyone on a secret government list banned from owning guns. He constantly talks about his three round duck gun, and how that’s all anyone needs, else they are “hunting humans”. He even brought a prop FUDD to the final gun state house control hearing on 9/13/13. He is a wretched and disgusting human being, a condescending elitist, and I think that should be mentioned when his billboard is mentioned.
I wonder what that number would be if you took out gang on gang violence in cities with draconian gun laws.
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