Tag Archives: gun laws

The all-seeing eye (of the networked FFL)

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Go ahead, tell me you wouldn't shop there...

Go ahead, tell me you wouldn’t shop there…

Following the news that the terrorist in the Orlando attack was able to legally purchase his firearms from a local store after he was turned down by one licensed dealer just days before, I spoke a couple weeks ago with software developer and long-time gun owner Seth Banks who came up with an idea that gun shops could help network to keep this from happening in the future.

The idea is simple. A private network for verified Federal Firearms Licensees to share and report incidents they have with suspicious buyers, and communicate with each other. When one shop in the network posts an alert, other dealers within driving distance are alerted via email, in-app notification, and/or text message.

“FFLs deny gun purchases for all sorts of reasons; including mental health, straw sales, intoxication, violent comments in the store, etc. … FFLs are on the front line protecting our community from bad actors already. Why not make their jobs easier?” Banks argued.

And with that Gun Shop Watchlist was formed.

More in my column at Guns.com

Hessian SEK comes correct

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So last Thursday a “confused” man entered the Kinopolis in the Rhein-Neckar-Zentrum shopping center located in the town of Viernheim around armed with an unidentified weapon from which he fired at least four shots in the air. This initiated a response from Hessian state police Spezialeinsatzkommando (SEK) members from nearby Frankfurt who ended the hostage situation (four workers and 14 visitors held against their will) with judicious use of chemicals (CS) and surgical use of small arms.

At the end of the incident, the gunman was expired but all the movie-goers were fine with the exception of a whiff of CS.

Post-shooting analysis show the 19-year old German at the root of the incident to be a disturbed young man armed with blank firing alarm guns and fake grenades, which is sad and seems leaning towards suicide by cop.

Not to be confused with the smaller and more counter-terror focused federal GSG9, SEKs are more akin to special response/SWAT teams and by looking at the imagery coming from the incident, there are a few uniquely German take-aways.

Beards are definitely in German LE. Something that is frowned upon in the States. Also, check out the Heckler and Koch MP5A5. Very nice.

Beards are definitely in with German LE– something that is frowned upon in the States. Also, check out the Heckler and Koch MP5A5. Very nice. Further, Mechanix and Motorola aren’t just for Yanks…

Turn out gear is tactical need based-- grab it and go-- as noted by this officer's drop leg rig, which is obviously optimized for the use of hard-plate armor if you note the drop leg holsters. As for the extra handguns (note all the HKs), it looks like the Blackhawk SREPA was there before he threw the balaclava and other gear on and he just hasn't taken it off yet.

Turnout gear is tactical need based– grab it and go– as noted by this officer’s drop leg rig, which is obviously optimized for the use of hard-plate armor if you note the drop leg holsters. As for the extra handguns (note all the HKs), it looks like the Blackhawk SREPA was there before he threw the balaclava and other gear on and he just hasn’t taken it off yet. Still the balaclava and shorts combo is suspect…

Finally, it looks like SEK is perfectly fine rolling in short pants and sneaks. Again we have MP5s and HK pistols. Also note the abbreviated expandable baton on the officer to the right, worn cross draw at about the 11 c'clock

Finally, it looks like SEK is perfectly fine rolling in short pants and sneaks in the interest of saving time. The team came from Frankfurt which is about an hour away so they likely just grabbed and ran. Again we have an MP5, what looks to be a very chopped HK33, and HK pistols along with dropleg rigs and beards. Also note the abbreviated expandable baton on the officer to the left, worn cross draw at about the 11 o’clock on an officer that is obviously right-hand dominant.

On a semi-related note, HK is bringing their newest civilian-legal version of the MP5K to the U.S. in coming days.

I fooled around with one last month in Louisville and have to admit it is kinda sweet.

DSC_0137 DSC_0138 DSC_0143 DSC_0141

The good news is, the SP5K is still made at the HK Oberndorf factory in Germany and comes with a STANAG 4694 Profile mounting rail.

Bad news is it’s $2,699 MSRP and if you add the optional folding buttstock you are still looking at the stamp. Still, the closest competition, the Zenith MKE Z-5 series, runs close to that and no matter how nice they are, still don’t say HK on them…

The Army’s surplus gun pipeline may be fixing to run dry

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m1_lede

Last week the U.S. Senate overwhelmingly passed the 2017 defense authorization act– but hidden inside its pages is a section that could destroy the military’s current stock of surplus rifles and pistols.

The Senate’s version of the 2017 National Defense Authorization Act authorizes some $602 billion in spending and despite President Obama’s threat to veto the annual policy measure over issues including a ban on closing the Guantanamo Bay military prison, saw widespread support, passing 85-13 last Tuesday.

While many have noted the measure includes such items as requiring females to register for the draft beginning in 2018, others have been lost in the almost kafkaesque layers of the bill.

In short, within 90 days of the bill becoming law, the Army would transfer almost all of the surplus guns it held at Anniston to Rock Island for meltdown. The only exceptions would be for up to 2,000 M1911 pistols and 2,000 M14 rifles that could be donated to military museums for preservation.

This could mean the death knell for surplus guns for CMP, the 1033 Program which supports some 8,000 local police agencies, and the Ceremonial Rifle Program which provides guns for veterans’ groups such as the VFW and DAV.

More in my column at Guns.com

Connex loads of quiet headed overseas?

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Back in 1976, the Ford Administration approved the Arms Export Control Act as part of the NDAA which gave the State Department the juice to regulate foreign military weapon sales and transfers. Part of this, under the later International Traffic in Arms Regulations, led State to put the kibosh on commercial sales of things like night vision gear and suppressors , citing they were defense articles.

hk 91 with suppressor and m1 garand silencerco photo
This means that while countries like Norway, Finland, New Zealand and the UK have lax laws on the sale of “silencers” for sporting and target purposes, U.S. firms like SilencerCo, Gemtech and Surefire can sell all they want to the Royal Marines or the Norwegian Army, but not to good old gameskeeper Mr. Thatcher or hunter Mr. Johansson– even though local laws are cool with it.

I did speak to several inside the beltway and the suppressor industry about that last week, and a new legislation, the logically named Suppressor Export Act, to change the regs.

More in my column at Guns.com

Of suppressor deregulation and upcoming ATF changes

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At SHOT Show this year I had a chance to throw some knives and hawks on range day and did so like shit. They were SOGs and, while I can make the excuse I wasn’t used to them and prefer my own edged weapons which I do throw much better, I still did miserably.

sog knives and hawks

However, I also did it right behind Josh Waldron, the co-founder and CEO of SilencerCo, the company that is like the Glock of suppressors. How big are they? They ship 10,000 cans a month, which is more than most suppressor makers ship in a year.

I had a chance last week to catch back to up him without the tomahawks and talk about various states dropping prohibitions against private suppressor ownership (42 states now allow it), hunting with suppressors (39 now allow it, up from 22 in 2011), potential deregulation of suppressors from NFA requirements via the Hearing Protection Act, and the impact that ATF 41F is going to have on trusts and CLEO requirements.

SilencerCo.founder.believes.in_.creating.a.lifestyle.to_.mainstream.suppressors
“We’re trying to make guns sexy again because they always really have been in this country,” Waldron said. “It’s been part of the fabric of the culture here but we want to make sure that that continues and so we’re trying to revive that.”

You can read the interview over at Guns.com.

A gal, a huge rifle, a passion for Curios and Relics

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I had a really interesting interview last week with Mae from C&Rsenal, primarily about their massive Mauser M1918 T-Geweher anti-tank rifle, but also about curios and relics in general.

T-gewehr-shoot-3-

Photo by C&Rsenal

Check it out over at Guns.com

Vale, SOF

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The last time you'll see this on the newsstand is this month...

The last time you’ll see this on the newsstand is this month…

I’ve met and spoken at length with “The Colonel” so this came as a blow of sorts.

Long the beacon in the newsstand for those who yearned to meet interesting people in far off lands– and maybe get into a firefight with them, will fade away to digital only starting in April.

Founded by renowned international man of mystery, Vietnam-era Green Beret Lt. Col. Robert K. Brown, “The Journal of Professional Adventurers” based in Boulder, Colorado will no longer appear in print form moving forward

“Yes we are now an online magazine with much more content including current events and updates and industry news. And now we have a much larger and broader audience,” reads a post on their Facebook page.

Since 1975, SOF provided an outlet for legitimate and would-be mercenaries professional military contractors and assisted with filling hard-to-find positions in Africa, the Middle East and South America as well as fueling untold Walter Mitty fantasies in the more chairborne commando.

Noted contributors over the past four decades have included Col. David Hackworth, Lt. Col. Oliver North and sniper guru Maj. John Plaster.

SOF pulled a number of coups for the good guys over the years including effectively grounding Sandinista Mi-24 Hind helicopters during the Contra years after Brown published an offer of a $1,000,000 reward for the defection of a Nicaraguan pilot with his gunship. Brown also spirited out the first bulk caches of the then-new Soviet 5.45x45mm round seen in the West as well as other equipment from Afghanistan in the 1980s.

At least six correspondents from the magazine have been killed while on assignment in such third world hotspots as Burma, Angola, and Sierra Leone, going that extra mile for the story.

As noted by the Wall Street Journal, SOF has declined from its peak readership of over 150,000 a month in the 1980s, but its Facebook page remains active with nearly a million followers.

Brown remains a power in the gun rights community and has long sat on the board of the National Rifle Association.

Because flamethrowers are used in crime so often…

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The $1,200 XM42, able to ship to your door in 48 states without a license, will send flame over 25 feet away and last for about 38 seconds, but has earned frowns from lawmakers seeking to regulate it over what “could” happen. (Photo: Ion Productions)

The $1,200 XM42, able to ship to your door in 48 states without a license, will send flame over 25 feet away and last for about 38 seconds, but has earned frowns from lawmakers seeking to regulate it over what “could” happen. (Photo: Ion Productions)

In the absence of documented flamethrower attacks, I had a chance to speak with the head of a company that makes the devices about pending legislation that seeks to regulate the items.

Detroit-based Ion Productions has been working on the XM42 flamethrower concept since 2008 and last year raised $50,000 overnight through crowd-sourcing to move what they billed as the “world’s first commercial handheld flamethrower” forward into production.

Moreover, they did their homework beforehand.

“During the development and funding of the XM42 project, we were in contact with numerous fire departments and controlled burn workers in regards to its utility for them,” Chris Byars, Ion’s president and founder told Guns.com. “Farmers, firefighters, controlled burn prescribers have used devices that emit streams of fire for many years.”

Laws governing the devices are few, with only California and Maryland having codified their use while the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives have no mandate to restrict them.

However, just months after the X42 gained national media attention, lawmakers sought to step up regulation.

More in my column at Guns.com

Lawmaker seeks to open the floodgate of South Korean M1 imports

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Universal Soldier by Tim Page showing a ROK marine in vietnam after combat. Note the M1 Garand, the South Koreans have over 87,000 of these in arsenal storage that they have been trying to sell to a U.S. importer since 2009

Universal Soldier by Tim Page showing a ROK marine in Vietnam after combat. Note the M1 Garand, the South Koreans have over 87,000 of these in arsenal storage that they have been trying to sell to a U.S. importer since 2009

A measure introduced this week to the U.S. House of Representatives is looking to override the State Department-imposed blockade on thousands of M1 Carbines and Garands coming home from Korea.

The move comes as the latest installment in an effort by Republican lawmakers to force change in the administration’s 2009 decision to block the importation of no less than 87,000 rifles donated to South Korea that are now surplus to that country’s needs.

Previous attempts launched in past sessions to free-up the guns failed to gain traction, however with recent GOP gains in Congress and a seemingly lame duck president in the twilight of his term, one representative isn’t giving up.

The rest over in my column at Guns.com

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