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.