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The Heritage Guild gun range courtesy lehighvalleylive.com

Amusing FUD from a small-minded small-town township supervisor in Williams Township, PA, where two men want to open a handgun ammunition manufacturing facility adjacent to The Heritage Guild shooting range. Supervisor Vincent Foglia objected on safety grounds, saying he feared that people — including those “who want to build pipe bombs” — would break into the facility. He added that the township doesn’t have a full-time police department to patrol in case a situation like that occurred. It’s not always enough to be right, you often have to be tolerant of ignorance as well. . .

What does 50 years at a police firing range get you? The city of Albuquerque, Colorado (who knew?) recently found out when they contracted to have their firing range rehabbed. MT2, LLC of Colorado came in and spent two weeks cleaning and rebuilding the berms, recovering 55,000 pounds of lead from the soil there. That’s an estimated 3,500,000 bullets, or approximately 70,000 a year.

In a great example of “scraping the bottom of the barrel” to support his case, Piers Morgan had Kerry Kennedy (who?) on his show for an interview Wednesday night. If you don’t know, Kerry Kennedy is the daughter of Bobby Kennedy, and the real reason she was on the show was remembering her uncle, JFK, on occasion of the 50th anniversary of his assassination. At the end of the segment, however, Piers turned the conversation toward gun control, and he got the money shot quote of her calling Wayne LaPierre “an assassin.” In truth, she demurred by saying “some people” had referred to WLP that way, but if she didn’t agree, she probably wouldn’t have said it. Still, who?

“Legal gun owners are polite. There are more than 200 million of them in the US. If they weren’t, do you really think anyone would really have the temerity to promote, much less legislate gun control?” Comment under Fired up: Gun owners gather to grouse about a slew of new laws over at the Humboldt County, CA North Coast Journal.

I continue my quest to find the proper definition of an arsenal, with a story out of Temple, Texas. Police spotted a vehicle parked illegally outside the VA center (that’s federal property, I believe) in Temple, looked in the window and saw several boxes of ammunition on the rear seat. They contacted the owner, who gave officers permission to search the vehicle. (Oops, I accidentally Fourth Amendment.) They found (deep breath) “Smith and Wesson Air Lite .357 revolver with a laser grip, a S&W .45 APC Thunder Ranch revolver with a SureFire flash light, a Colt Army special .38 revolver, a S&W DA .45 revolver model 1917, a S&W .45 revolver model 1950, a Browning 9 mm semi-automatic pistol with magazine, a Makarov 9 mm semi-automatic pistol with magazine, a Heckler and Koch semi-automatic 9 mm with magazine, and a S&W .45 revolver model 1989.” They also found “5,883 rounds of various brands and calibers of ammunition and a Kershaw knife with a 5.25 inch blade.” So, eight handguns, a pocket knife, and a pile of ammo. Arsenal? Cache? Fun afternoon?

Richard Ryan continues his quest to make the fanboys whine, nuking a brand new Sony Playstation 4 with his Barrett. I love how the case plastic ripples like the surface of a pond when you throw in a pebble. The pebble in this case just happens to be ~700 grains and pointy at one end.

 
LBEH is up to a touch over $12,000, with 9 expensive international tickets booked, and another 4-5 still in progress. Domestic requests open up next week. Click the banner for more info, and Let’s Bring ‘Em Home!

lbeh.org

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64 COMMENTS

    • Because it’s not out yet.

      Seriously though, I don’t get this recent phenomenon of buying the latest piece of in-demand tech and then destroying it. If you’re going to trash something, trash something nobody cares about anymore.

      • I agree. But let’s discuss this notion about kids breaking in to get powder for “pipe bombs”; because it’s SO much easier to do a black bag job at a secure facility than it is to go buy a carton of pelleted propellant, right?

        Maybe he should ask the area’s reloaders how often they’ve experienced such break-ins.

      • He makes his money that way, because videos about Betamax machines don’t get hits like videos about the latest gadget because people don’t insert the word Betamax into the search bar as much as they do the term PS4 because they don’t care.

    • Many years ago there was a catch phrase, “To err is human, to really screw things up you need a computer.” Apparently to really screw up a computer you need a human, and a Barrett .50.

    • I’m pretty ambivalent. I have a PS3, and I’m pretty goddamn good at GranTurismo, but 98% of its usage is streaming DLNA video from my PC to my TV.

        • Now”s your chance to see what a big fiddy does to an atari. If you have any of the old game cartridges to go with it you can super glue them on like reactive armor for more protection.

          I bought my boys an atari and then a nintendo when they were young. I just never got into them. Course in those days I was still working 2 jobs.

        • Haha
          Still trying to find some interesting targets that will react nicely. Having a variety of interesting ammo helps. Dying to shoot some raufoss rounds. Now that the hills are soaked again, I can get the APIT rounds out. Even 1″ thick steel is nothing out to 500 yds.

        • If it still works and you have one of the rarer atari games, its worth more money than you paid for it 30 years ago!

    • Nah, I’m in the same boat. I used to play a shitload of games, LAN parties, all the rest. Other than BF3 and some occasionall Wii games, my gaming prowess is pretty much stuck in the late 1980s to the early 2000s. Nothing about any of the new games interests or excites me, and I have a family to tend to. Gaming as a hobby for me is just pretty much played out.

      Actually the thing I’m sort of looking forward to is playing video games with my son as he gets older. I’m sure if I stop paying attention to gaming, by the time his Playstation 8 rolls around, I’ll be blown away by what’s possible – but, I’ll probably still be bored by it after the first couple levels.

      • You aren’t missing much as most new games are lacking in challenge and some in story. How many Nintendo games did you beat? I know there were a lot that I have never beat and I played the hell out of them. Fast forward twenty years. How many new games that I have played have I not beaten? If I don’t get bored with it because the story sucks I will eventually beat it.

      • Ahh, the old he-enjoys-video-games-so-he-must-be-lazy-and-lonely meme. File that one away right next to the gun-owners-are-old-fat-white-guys-who-are-scared-of-minorities trope. You should listen to Mark Twain: “It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open one’s mouth and remove all doubt.”

    • Generation gap, maybe?

      The number of entertainment hours I’ve gotten from Xbox games in the last 12 months is a large multiple of TV hours watched.

      • for sure a generational thing in my case. We didn’t have PCs, video games, cell phones in my youth. I’ve been slow to adopt the tech. My cell phone is a pay as you go walmart cheapie that I use just as a phone. If it wasn’t for TTAG I would still be in the dark about computers.

      • Yes, absolutely a gen gap. My wife and I are 26, both play video games, both have jobs, and neither have ever paid for television service.

    • No! Never played one, doubt I ever will. Rather read a book, play guitar, go shooting, refinish a stock, etc., etc., etc. still like pinball machines, though.

    • Games are getting really good now, actually. I don’t play all that much, because I don’t have the time, but I enjoy playing occasionally.

      The Last of Us, in particular, was incredible. I actually got emotionally involved with the characters, more so than anything else I’ve seen or read recently.

    • Anmut, you are not alone. I do not currently nor have I ever owned any game consol and my playing of games is the occasional hand of solitaire on the computer. I never saw the facsination in it that seems to grab other people.

  1. I know he can do what he wants with his own property but just like the will it blend videos of a few years back this wanton distruction of useful items that could be donated to worthy causes just strikes me as wrong now shooting up a dead video game with no real value is fine as is using an old car on the way to the crusher but good items with use it is som sort of consumerist potlatch ceremony and when done with guns reflects badly on the perpetrators

    • Comments like yours drive me a little insane. They purchase a piece of desirable/contemporary piece of electronics, they film shooting it, that generates interest, that generates views, that generates revenue. Then they do it again. If step two is give that piece of electronics away, the system stops. If they shoot useless junk, no-one cares, no views, no money. This notion that some poor child will be deprived of a ps4 because they shot one is sanctimonious nonsense.

      • Maybe. I just thought it meant that it could have made some poor child happy to have one given to them, not that there’s any obligation implied.

        As in, “I could shoot this brand new PS4 (or whatever) all to shit for my own aggrandizement, and then again, I could give some kid a good Christmas. Come ON, didn’t you feel your heartstrings tugged even a little bit? The best thing, maybe, would be to have given it to one’s local police or fire department, whichever one happens to collect Toys for Tots. He who gives, also shall receive; that’s actually true.

        • They bought the ps4 to shoot it. It wasn’t just lying around and they were thinking ‘hmmm, we could give it away, or we could destroy it’. There will be no parents turning to their child this Christmas and telling them they would have gotten a ps4 but a bad man on the internet shot it instead.

          Even worse to extend your (and I hesitate to call it) “logic”, the filmmaker stands to make far more from this video than $400. Money they could use to buy SEVERAL more ps4s to donate to whatever cause they see fit. So by not making this video they would in fact deprive more children of that possible donation. Do you not see how ridiculous the objection to this video is?

          All ps4s will die eventually, this one at least died gloriously.

  2. I don’t know if Matt was being serious or just trolling, but the second clip is talking about Albuquerque, NM. The company that did the work is based in Colorado, which is why the article is titled out of CO.

    • It was only halfway trolling, because to be honest, the press release doesn’t exactly make that clear. It doesn’t say New Mexico anywhere in the press release. I suppose that means Albuquerque is like Madonna, and no further info is thought to be necessary. I’m going to leave it as is, because it amuses me.

      • I lived many years in both NM and CO and it took me at least 10 minutes of re-reading coupled with at least three attempts to find Albuquerque Colorado on Google maps before I figured out they were talking about Albuquerque, NM, so I certainly won’t fault you for it.

  3. Lets keep the VA safe by banning guns? I guess the .gov just doesn’t learn. Nobody is safer in a gun free zone. Fort Hood is a few miles away and we saw how well that gun free zone worked.

  4. My God , these non articles are on the verge of making me delete TTAG from my favorites. This blog seems to have become a collection of blurbs. No thanks.

    • The Digest is, pretty much by definition, the wrap-up of things that didn’t quite warrant a full post, but that are interesting enough not to pass up entirely. What exactly is it you want more of? Be specific; “not this” isn’t helpful.

        • Okay; that was definitely my most misunderstood post of the month. Just for future reference, sometimes I’m a bit light-hearted in my posts. The rest of the time, I’m serious or sarcastic.

          That’s actually pretty common here. Look around.

      • More and more, entries are starting to look like parts of the weekly digest. They resemble conversation starters more than articles. I started reading this blog a year or two ago because the guys were putting some solid writing in but now the best entries seem to be coming from outside contributors more than Zimmerman and Farago, who have been essentially writing the odd compelling paragraph that ends just as it gets interesting. Nothing person against those guys or this blog, but I have noticed the change and am not impresed.

        • You’re saying they LOOK like conversation-starters, but you think they’re something else? Responses to posts are actually conversations. Is there some reason you think the posts themselves shouldn’t be?

          I don’t quite understand what you think should be here instead. Have you tried submitting articles?

    • Over here, I would have gotten into a discussion regarding half moon versus full moon clips.
      Then I would have invited him over after work so I could give him all the clips I have in both configurations.
      I carried a factory owners manual for a ’67 camaro in my work briefcase for almost 2 years waiting… Finally saw a guy with one. Waited till he pulled into a parking spot and handed it to him. I love pulling ‘gotchas’ like that. I was taught by one of the best.

      • Man, I’m at a loss for words at that one. Wonder how he explained this to his buddies? If that guy was a conspiracy buff you might have driven him over the edge. I would have loved to seen his face.

  5. That’s an estimated 3,500,000 bullets, or approximately 70,000 a year.

    So, about what Todd Louis Green shoots on his own every year, then. (I’m only slightly exaggerating.)

  6. I wouldn’t call it an arsenal, but that’s a lot of boom-boom to be hauling around in your car. I’d be afraid to leave it parked ANYWHERE.

  7. Uh, stupid question, which is bigger, an arsenal or a cache? I think if we are really going find an answer to the arsenal question, we need to lay some ground work.

    • My considered opinion is that arsenal > cache. When the press says “Police uncovered a cache of weapons…” the list usually runs only to 2-3 items. When they say arsenal, the list is usually 4-5 or more.

    • Did you mean which is actually bigger, or which the media thinks is bigger?

      There don’t appear to be any rules – and they love it that way – but my sense is a cache is smaller than an arsenal. The requisite number for either is very small.

  8. Arsenal? Cache? Fun afternoon?

    You left out “a REALLY fun afternoon…

    You say that the police found all of these weapons, you didn’t say what they did after they found them. Did they confiscate them and arrest the guy or did they congratulate him on his collection and send him on his way? Inquiring minds want to know…

    • The article says he was cited for possession of firearms on federal property. He worked at the VA, so it also appears he lost his job.

      • The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed, except on Federal Property?

        Anyone know whether this guy is a good candidate for a protest movement? Sounds like just a guy that wasn’t able to transfer his guns from his vehicle to his house before needing to go to work. And for this he was arrested and lost his job? True, it wasn’t wise to park illegally and leave ammo in the back seat but arrested and fired for exercising a constitutionally protected, basic human right?

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