“A gun activist group founded by former Rep. Ron Paul has been trying to give away an assault-style rifle.” Trying? Do or do not. There is no try. “It’s part of a campaign to empower people to know their rights when it comes to firearms; however, giving away a weapon similar to the one used in the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School was not sitting well with some people in Newtown. They said they were speechless while others said to stop blaming the guns.” And there you have it, via wfsb.com. Except for this: “‘I’m trying to be neutral about this,’ said Lisa Reda, of Bethlehem. ‘But I just don’t see the need for that.'” I think she means the raffle, not the need to be neutral. But it works either way. Your Lockdown of the Day™ comes from . . .
Santa Fe, New Mexico. A 12-year-old boy took a nonfunctioning rifle to his elementary school Friday morning. He said didn’t want to go to class and told the school principal about the rifle, and ran to his grandmother’s car out in the parking lot. According to the Alberquerque Journal, the principal “defused the situation” and retrieved the .22-caliber rifle from the back seat of the grandmother’s car. The rifle was missing the bolt and there were no bullets for it, and the grandmother didn’t know the rifle was even in the car. The school was placed under a “shelter-in-place order” (a lockdown by any other name…) for about an hour, “as a precaution.” The boy was taken to a hospital for a mental evaluation, and robo-calls went to to parents informing them of the event, both as it occurred and more calls after it was resolved. I’m glad I was out of school before the era of the robo-call.
Because I can’t rewrite it any better, from KSDK.com, a story where sanity did not prevail. An unloaded gun was found Friday morning on the campus of Francis Howell High School in St. Charles County, Missouri. In a letter sent home to parents, Principal Dr. Dave Wedlock says a security guard saw the gun inside a student’s vehicle during a routine patrol of the parking lot. The gun was inside its original packaging, and after questioning a student, it was determined the student was going to go target shooting after school. Wedlock says no threat was ever made to students or staff. According to the school district’s code of conduct, the student could be suspended for one year or expelled.
The Navy has released a video of a test of their Electromagnetic Railgun, which fires an oddly shaped projectile at Ludicrous Speed (that’s a thing). The high-speed video would make Richard Ryan jealous. According to an attached story, the prototype will be going to sea in 2016, on a Navy transport with a civilian crew. The initial at-sea tests will be one shot at a time, with multiple-round tests following in 2018. Installation of a working gun on a combat ship will come some time after that. So for now, enjoy the video, and the visible wake the 23-pound projectile leaves behind as it travels at seven times the speed of sound.
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