to help a person search their wallet for a driver’s license. I’ve literally seen that on a traffic stop.” On the equipment side, a Texas officer with years of service, a reputation for being a great shot, and a spotless safety record accidentally shot a suspected drug dealer while attempting to simply shine his flashlight on him. That officer now believes that the weapon-mounted lights are a bad idea, saying that incidents like his are nearly inevitable in the future. Other (unspecified) training experts believe the lights are here to stay, and that the benefits outweigh the risks.
Your Lockdown of the Day™ comes from Los Angeles, California. Los Angeles Valley College in Valley Glen was on lockdown for a little over four hours Monday after police received a call that someone with a gun was headed to the campus. Students and staff were warned to stay inside or away from campus while authorities investigated. The lockdown was lifted around 2 p.m., and it was not immediately apparent if there had been a genuine threat. Police were looking into the identity of the male caller who’d made the initial report. Monday was the last day of final exams at Valley College, and exams that had been scheduled for 12:30 p.m. were cancelled. I’m sure that had nothing whatsoever to do with the alert.
The ammunition shortage that we’ve been experiencing for quite a while is now being felt on the other side of the world, literally. Australian importers of firearms and ammunition say the situation there is a crisis state. The managing director of Nioa, Australia’s biggest firearms and ammunition wholesaler, says the company has been forced to wait up to three years for some of its American stock to arrive, leaving customers scrounging and making do with existing products. He says some of those three year delays have started to fall back down, but even they are still in the 6-12 month range. The pest management industry is also being hard hit, making it hard to keep the large populations of feral pigs and wild dogs in check. With their usual ammunition either unavailable or extremely high-priced, they’re forced into looking into other options like locally sourced powder, which is high quality, but extremely expensive and limited in quantity. Amidst all of this, even the government agencies are having trouble, though they’re getting priority on whatever is produced or imported.
Niagara Falls, New York held a gun buy-up over the weekend, and officials judged it a success, with “at least 120 guns bought back.” It was the usual routine, with prepaid cards ranging from $25 to $100 given out for the various levels of weapons. They were giving $25 for nonworking/antique guns, which is unusual. Most groups are onto that by now, and will take the gun but won’t give you anything. At the other end of the scale, “assault weapons” would score you a whole $100. The event ran from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Saturday, and people were lined up 20 minutes before it opened. Those in charge see that early line as a sign of people really wanting this service, but I’m more cynical and see it as a sign of people just wanting to get there early so they can get on with the part of their Saturday that doesn’t involve interfacing with the government.
This isn’t a gun video, it’s a knife video. A really big knife video. I hope you’ll forgive me, because I think it’s pretty awesome.
If he made those and reinforced them with steel like he talked about, I’d buy one.