Yes, it’s possible…maybe even preferable . . . A firearms retailer builds a customer base without using Google and Facebook
When two primary digital advertising channels are off limits, an online retailer has to track down other ways to gain customers and drive sales. That’s what 1800GunsAndAmmo.com is doing, and owners say business is thriving despite not having access to Google and Facebook Inc. advertising.
The site’s parent company, Webycorp, No. 703 in the Internet Retailer 2017 Top 1000, generated $25 million in web sales last year, according to CEO and co-founder Mikhail Orlov, despite having its guns and ammo marquee site barred from advertising on Google and Facebook.
Because Chicago . . . Elmhurst police: There will be no guns at concealed carry class
Safety concerns raised over a planned firearms class qualifying people to carry concealed weapons in Illinois are baseless, according to Elmhurst police chief Michael Ruth.
“It’s strictly a classroom environment,” Ruth said Wednesday. “There’s no weapons, there’s no firearms, there’s no ammunition. There’s none of those things.”
Social media activity on a couple of Elmhurst Facebook pages had raised the specter of armed students coming to the Sept. 23 and 24 classes being offered in the Knights of Columbus Hall at 537 S. York St.
At long last . . . Fed OKs sale of Cabela’s bank, paving way for merger
The Federal Reserve on Wednesday signed off on the sale of Cabela’s World’s Foremost Bank, paving the way for the company to complete its merger with Bass Pro Shops.
The Fed released a 23-page order Wednesday afternoon that said it concluded the sale of the bank to Columbus, Georgia-based Synovus Financial “would not have a significantly adverse effect on competition or on the concentration of resources in any relevant banking market.”
Synovus, which joined the deal in April after Capital One ran into regulatory issues, plans to take over $1.2 billion in assets from the bank, keep certificates of deposit and sell the credit card assets to Capital One.
Don’t be that guy . . . Video: Man Pulls Gun at Miami Gas Station During Hurricane Irma Rush
“I saw that guy pulling his gun out on the other driver,” Melanie says. “They were fighting over some gas!”
The armed man in the fanny pack apparently realized he’d gone too far, though: Melanie says he quickly put away his weapon and sped out of the lot.
“The guy was mad and impulsive and pulled out the gun, immediately regretting it afterwards,” she says. “He drove away speeding.”
No, they’re not joking around . . . Inside Texas’ Active Shooter Training Simulations
For his ongoing series Run, Fight, Hide, Spike Johnson shadowed cops, firefighters and other first responders participating in Advanced Law Enforcement Rapid Response Training in Texas. The gritty, black-and-white images resemble surveillance feed stills, with cops busting through doors, taking down shooters and carrying the victims to safety. The goal is to make it as real as possible. “They’re not joking around,” Johnson says. “It’s really serious.”
ALERRT is an FBI-endorsed program at Texas State University, training more than 105,000 police officers and 85,000 civilians since 2002, including Fort Hood responders Sergeants Kimberly Munley and Mark Todd. Former police and military officers teach classes around the country as well as on ALERRT’s 40-acre campus just outside of San Marcos.
You don’t say . . . CNN Pushes More Fake News About NRA’s Loesch
Media trade group Digital Content Next (DCN) is targeting the NRA for a video released in April featuring spokeswoman Dana Loesch. In the piece, titled “Taking on the Times,” Loesch slammed The New York Times as a dutiful shill for the Left and put the newspaper on alert. “We’re going to laser-focus on your so-called ‘honest pursuit of truth,’” she promised of their media bias. “In short, we’re coming for you.”
In a letter to Loesch, DCN took exception to her “incendiary language,” saying it was “un-American to threaten journalists.” They then proceeded to explain to Loesch the concept of the free press (which, presumably, also includes the right of the people to criticize that free press). When the letter was “leaked” to the press, CNN was all too glad to publish it—because nothing says “news” like a five-month-old video—and jump on the Loesch-bashing bandwagon.
The vast majority of urban violence is gang-related . . . Teen gun violence ‘a way of life’ in Savannah and Syracuse
On the surface, Savannah, Georgia, and Syracuse, New York, don’t have much in common beyond their size; both are smaller cities with populations hovering around 145,000 people. Yet their streets share a grim reality: Teenagers are being killed or wounded by firearms at rates far higher than in most U.S. cities, according to an Associated Press and USA TODAY Network analysis of shooting cases compiled by the nonprofit Gun Violence Archive.
From 2014 through this past June, 57 youths aged 12 to 17 in Savannah and 48 in Syracuse were killed or injured in gun violence. The cities’ rates of teen shootings per capita are more than double those seen in the vast majority of U.S. cities with populations of 50,000 or more.
A blunder down under? . . . What Happened When My Husband Unexpectedly Went to Prison
I know it sounds naïve now, but I never thought twice about Patrick getting into trouble — he was a goody-two shoes. He had always done everything completely above board.
On that night in 2012, the police weren’t able to tell me what Patrick had been charged with. He was locked up overnight and I next saw him in court the morning after he was released on bail.
Patrick was charged with possession of a slingshot, two crossbows, one unregistered rifle and three metallic objects. He also had agreed to sell the unregistered rifle to an undercover police officer in his shop and had assembled the crossbow for the officer — both crimes in New South Wales, where we live.
