Stevens Model 320 courtesy savagearms.com

Always check your rental car for stray guns before returning it. Always. Police in Spartanburg, SC were called to a local Hertz Rental office after employees reported finding a loaded 12-gauge shotgun and ammunition inside a car returned Thursday morning. The vehicle had been rented to a 25-year-old Florida man at an airport in Huntington, West Virginia. According to the police report, the employee found a black Stevens Model 320 pump 12-gauge (similar to above) loaded with four round of buckshot and 22 additional rounds of ammunition in an open box, as well as a pair of Nike running shoes, a pair of socks, an ashtray, a travel computer adapter, two men’s watches, and an unopened can of dip. There’s a story here, but I don’t think we’ll ever know what it is. Read on . . .

Your Lockdown of the Day™ comes to you from Fayetteville, North Carolina. E.E. Smith High School, which was in session on Saturday for a snow day make-up day, was locked down after a former studen fired a BB gun inside the school and in the parking lot. No one was hurt in the incident. Surveillance video shows that Antionwan Haskins entered the school about 11:06 a.m. and fired several shots from the BB gun into a wall near the principal’s office. He proceeded outside where he fired at least one shot at the principal’s car, damaging the windshield. He then left the school and went home, but his mother brought him back to the school to turn himself in to authorities. He’s being held on charges of possession of a weapon on school grounds, disorderly conduct, disrupting students and injury to personal property.

The Alabama bill that would allow people to carry loaded pistols in their cars without a permit has stalled in the Senate, with Republicans unable to muster enough support to overcome a Democrat filibuster. The bill is sponsored by Sen. Scott Beason, who last year sponsored and passed another gun bill that made getting a concealed permit easier and lifted the state’s long-standing restriction on carrying a gun on “property not one’s own.” That change essentially legalized the open carry of handguns anywhere it was not expressly forbidden. One member of the current bill’s opposition is Republican Sen. Phil Williams, who said he supported gun rights but [There’s that nasty “but” again.] could not vote for a bill that would decrease the number of gun permits purchased in Etowah County, because those permits, he says, pay for school resource officers. Nothing to do with safety, just revenue. The leader of the filibuster, Sen. Rodger Smitherman, did not actually express opposition to the bill, but rather, was upset about a vote earlier in the week on a bill related to the Birmingham Water Works, and had warned lawmakers he’d try to slow the process down. Revenue and temper tantrums. That’s how the sausage gets made.

This is an interesting looking free-float rail system from SureFire, although I’m generally leery of anything labeled “proprietary.” Opinions?

According to an article at news.com.au, guns, ammunition, and shooting are a daily part of life in Pretoria, South Africa where Oscar Pistorius is on trial for murder. The article is written with a definite sense of wonder at how matter-of-fact people there are about their shooting, saying that at the local mall, you can “shop for a new bedroom suite, have your trousers altered, or buy 200 rounds of hollow point ammunition designed to blow a hole in someone the size of a 50c piece.” Of course, there’s a hint of FUD from the innocent reporter, “Few Australians would … know the difference between hollow-point and solid ammunition or the characteristics of Black Talon versus Ranger bullets.” The author asked the proprietor of the shooting range where Pistorius practiced why anyone would want to buy Black Talon ammunition. His answer, described as “matter-of-fact, without any hint of embarrassment or disgust,” was, “To be more aggressive. Some people believe you have to put a solid in the magazine and then you have to alternate with hollow-point because if you shoot directly at a person then the hollow-point is better. But sometimes you have to shoot through a car door and then the solid is better.” Noted.

Jerry Miculek shows us the Targabot, an automated target system. Very cool, but apparently pretty pricey. I couldn’t find an official price, but Jerry said over on reddit that it’s “along the price of a higher end AR.” So a couple-three grand, most likely.

 
And finally, 22plinkster shooting skeet with an upside-down .22 pistol, using tracers for visibility.

So it took him three shots. I don’t think I could do it with five times that many, and right-side up.

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59 COMMENTS

  1. and in other news, Shannon admits they have someone full time on “troll patrol”. Pathetic

    http://www.stirjournal.com/2014/03/17/shannon-watts-founder-of-moms-demand-action-for-gun-sense-in-america/

    BTW – I wonder what this is about? 🙂 Comment Moderated.

    “TF: People threatened to come to your house and “take you out.” Have you ever called the authorities because of something like that?

    SW: Of course. But the police, around here anyway, have an interesting attitude about what I’m doing. Early on when I asked for help, their response was basically, “Well, this is what happens when you mess with the Second Amendment.”

    • “I keep saying I want them all in jail, and they act like I’m attacking them personally, I don’t understand the fear gun owners have. I’m not coming for their guns….I’m coming for all guns, so just calm down,” <—-basically every anti argument at once

    • Little surprised to see this footnote: “In this country, eight children [aged 10-19] are shot and killed every day.* *Calculations based on Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s most current data.

      • Funny thing about those 19 year old “children,” they seem to shoot each other. I’ll bet they didn’t complete a background check either. That must be the dreaded “criminal loophole.”

      • 7 out of 8 of those alleged “children” are between the ages of 16 and 19, and all of the are engaged in criminal activity at the time. You can correlate this data between the CDC’s findings and the FBI’s UCR.

        It’s more deliberate obfuscation and lying by omission. Par for the course for people that have less than no argument to start with and only have petty ad-hominem attacks and red herrings on offer.

      • since you fail to give proper h/t for finding a number of your threads I send your way, count this as a deposit. 🙂 Wonder where she and Johnny boy went on vacation. COMMENT MODERATED 🙂

        • I often lose track of which stories came from where. I try to remember to note it, but I’ve been very distracted lately. I also do my best to send a “Thanks” note when I use someone’s submission. Feel free to take credit for any or all of them. It doesn’t matter much to me.

    • Funny how she cites the massacre at Luby’s cafe. If you look up Dr. Suzanna Gratia Hupp, you’d find that she was there when the shooting took place and watched her parents killed in front of her. At the time, she had a gun in her car but wasn’t carrying it because it was entirely illegal under Texas law. Dr. Hupp went on to champion concealed carry reform in Texas after that.

      • BS on the Lubys massacre. She was born in 1972. In 1991 she was smoking pot and pondering on whom to next bestow her favors.

        Typical libtard. Says it so you MUST believe it.

    • Also…

      “We have made it clear from the beginning that we support the Second Amendment and the right to bear arms, but with rights come responsibilities. Yet there is a vocal minority that wants completely unfettered, unregulated access to any and all firearms.”

      Which explains why her group was so horrified when Alan Brooks posed next to her for a picture while carrying a concealed handgun. Because a guy who jumps through the hoops to carry legally under Texas law and then sticks an extremely common DA revolver in an ankle holster is such an extremist threat…

    • The billboard is a 1st amendment right. Is there any part of the constitution Mrs. Watts-Bloomberg doesn’t want to take away from me.

  3. Dirk, that is full of SO MUCH FUCKING WIN.
    I’d say that as a reply BUT ttag Decided mobile users are SOL and can’t reply to anything. Again. Still.

    • I am going out on a limb here, but I think the whole BS about her dad being a member of the NAACP was a subtle message aimed right for me. She wants me to know she is cool with the Brothers. My charm is working!!

        • I was being sincere. NRA Convention is coming up in a month. . . . just saying. first breakfast meeting at Ihop, then . . . . well, keep it PG13 here . . . ,. for the children. I will be bringing my camera.

      • Aw man – if we ever meet – drinks are on me for that comment. LOL – I’m still laughing like a lunatic!

  4. No Exhaltation of The XDm tonight? Disappointing.

    Dirk: Wow, that “interview” couldn’t have been more soft-ball if SW wrote the damn thing as a press release.

      • as opposed to just saavy, which would imply not to use your home address to piublicly incorporate a “non profit” that will blame the troubles of the world on, at minimum, a large and vocal minority of the population.

  5. Shooting clay birds with pistol isn’t really that hard. Just a bit of practice. Never tried it holding the pistol upside down. That was cool.

  6. So the targebot is $500 cheaper for the govt. Why do they rate the discount when they are using our tax dollars in the first place.

    • or Zionsville, Indiana. Cops there seem pretty cool and relaxed when dealing with hypersensitive housewives.

  8. The SureFire guy did say that you could “add Picatinny segments anywhere you like” … so it doesn’t sound like the proprietary thing is a big issue. Basically it sounds like you can mount stuff all over the place on that thing.

    • It looks like the “Picatinny segments” you add need to have the right backing attachment shape. I use Evolution hand guards, and that’s the story with them. Like the Evolutions very much.

  9. 26 rounds of shotgun ammo? Call me OCD but I’d fire 1 round In the air Biden style so I could have just one 25 round box!

  10. “Sleet” is not a clay target traveling directly away from you at a predetermined direction.

  11. That isn’t “Skeet” at all!

    Now, if you wanted to call it “cow pasture” trap, that would be much more correct.

  12. That MDA interview Dirk posted is making me queasy. It’s not so much the piece itself – Shannon bending facts in exciting new ways, as usual – it’s the “reporter” on the piece trying to moderate the comments, which are dominated by the 2A crowd. I could puke, I really could.

  13. Official price from website is 2,995 or $2,395 if you are one of the first 100 to order before they begin shipping in May.

    • But, if you are one of the first 100 callers, we’ll throw in a pack of target pasters. Just pay for extra shipping and handling fees.

  14. @gregolas….you win the internets, young padawan.
    @everyone else who replied to my above comment….I can’t stop laughing. My sides are in so much pain.

  15. Any EE with a little time can make that targetbot. Not sure why it would cost 3K. Even the remote, use a radio control radio and servos.

  16. something else to piss off Matt in FL:

    1) Notice that this on Bloomberg’s news channel – this is fucking win! http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-03-17/nra-opposition-may-scuttle-obamas-surgeon-general-choice?campaign_id=yhoo#p1

    2) If you haven’t checked out Shannon’s twit feed, you should see that comments attacking her are NOT being deleted. Hmmm, maybe she can’t check while on vacation or better yet, John manned up a little and told her to stay out of strange parking garages with her iphone? Anyway – just note we have free reign over there for the time being.

  18. “We’re working on it. In the meantime you can get a reply link by temporarily switching to the Desktop version of the site.”

    That would be extremely counterproductive to my general and overall laziness. Not cool.

  19. the real criminality in the first story was the unopened can of dip. shotguns are a dime a dozen but a good dip is something to be cherished.

  21. On that first link that dirk posted:
    Their comparison to drunk driving makes no sense. There are no laws that makes it harder to drive drunk, only punish after the fact. By their own special brand of “logic” they should only punish shooters after the fact.

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