I’m happy to repot that Bitter is done with her illness and on the mend, just in time for me to get sick again. Based on the fact that I don’t feel like death warmed over, I’m guessing just a cold. It certainly seems to be following the cold progression, and my temp is only slightly elevated. Hopefully I won’t pass this on to Bitter, otherwise it’s going to be like we had children disease wise. I’ve heard of some couples who have lots of kids and almost never have everyone well in winter.
First up, we have the SHOT show going on, and lots of interesting stuff there:
Jim Zimbo won a communication won an award at the State of the Industry Dinner. I think he made all the right reconciliatory gestures after the fact, so I don’t think he needs to be a pariah. Now Dick Metcalf on the other hand ….
The Robinson Arms XCR is a rifle I’ve been irrationally attracted to ever since I saw them change it from 5.56x45mm, to 6.8SPC, to 7.62x39mm all in one shooting session. Apparently it’s popular with Canadians because it’s unrestricted. I believe their law hinges on whether it’s a variant of a military rifle, which the XCR is not.
Hollywood is making another bomb of a movie. I’m not sure how the market for leftist political porn is these days, but I predict a flop.
New precision rifles, soon to be renamed “sniper” rifles and put on the anti-gun banwagon.
First look at the “Appleseed Ruger”
R51 Photos. PDB has some concerns about their marketing. I’m not sure “our product will make you into a ninja,” type advertising has ever been fail if your target audience is men.
And now for some non SHOT links:
Local opposition stymies SAFE Act. Note that SAFE is not any kind of happy medium, as the anti-gun folks push for even more laws. I wonder how Remington feels now about investing in New York.
Chicago has been given a six month stay to reform its laws about gun sales and transfers. As an Obama appointed judge in Utah showed on gay marriage, when the issue in question is favored, they know how to issue immediate injunctions.
Joe thinks California will be shall-issue eventually, nothing a recent lawsuit victory.
Quoting from Tom Gresham’s superb remarks: “After a lifetime of writing magazine articles and books, hosting Jim Zumbo Outdoors, and lecturing about hunting and hunting guns, Jim almost had his great body of work erased by a single mistake, which, in fact, may have done more to educate hunters than everything else he has done. After questioning the use of AR-style guns in the realm of hunting in an Outdoor Life blog entry, Jim heard the cries of gun owners. He immediately educated himself about modern sporting rifles and became a proponent of them. That speaks well of his intellectual honesty.”
May Dick Metcalf learn from this!
“That speaks well of his intellectual honesty.â€
Gee, maybe now he’s honest enough to be a politician?
States like CA going shall issue would be nice. I think the concealed carry boom has created boatloads of 2A supporters. That’s exactly what states like CA need.
PA issued 167,000 LCTFs in 2011, and 245,444 in 2012. I am very anxious to see the figure for 2013. Any guesses?
For the first 3-4 months of 2013, the wait time in my county for a LTC went from <5 minutes to over a month. And pocket pistols flew off the shelves of my local shops all year long. I'm expecting a massive number.
Figuring out the # of LTCF holders is easy since the PSP releases the figures every year. The LTC is valid for 5 years, so I just added up the totals for 2008-2012.
At the end of 2012, there were 872,277 LTCF holders in PA.
If 278,566 LTCs were issued in 2013 (and I’d bet my house it was more than that), there would be exactly 1,000,000 LTCF holders in PA as of 1/1/2014.
There are 10 million Pennsylvanians over age 18. More than 10% have a LTC. That’s a hell of a voting bloc.
There are many counties in CA with supportive Sheriffs where it’s already de-facto Shall Issue, it’s just the Bay Aerea and LA that are ass-backwards. Where we moved-to Retirement, it’s pretty easy to get a CCW and was indeed one of the motivating factors of moving and relocating.
I don’t know if I’d say “just” LA and the Bay area, since those two areas have a population of 17 million people.
It’s not quite that nice. 47 of the 58 counties issue less than a thousand permits a year.
San Diego County is very restrictive. Not as bad as Los Angeles which issues almost no permits, but still pretty bad.
This bit of news is also encouraging… http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Registration-of-silencers-up-in-Ohio-5137782.php
“Hollywood is making another bomb of a movie.”
I’ll admit upfront I may get the following wrong, because Hollywood could sink into the Pacific and it would take a long time for me to miss it, but:
I well remember, because it pissed me off so badly at the time, how Danny Glover would position anti-gun, anti-NRA posters in the scenes inside the cop house in the “Die Hard” movies. (I think I only saw one in the theater, then would never go to the sequels.) But I think he gave up the practice, so I suspect there was some feedback that it was a bad public relations move. I never really forgave Mel Gibson for being in those movies.
Andy, you’re thinking “Lethal Weapon”, and The 3rd Movie actually had an anti-rights blessed script. It was pretty common in the 90s. Most Sit-Coms and TV Dramas had some anti-gun propaganda woven into an episode or two.
The dirge of “Guns are bad” woven into so many projects probably did a lot of damage in a day before the wide spread of the internet and “New Media”.
These days I suspect the Wienstein project will be a single, and bizarre voice calling about the horrors of gun control in a pro-gun America.
Let them sink their money into that ship before it hits the bottom!
Harvey said it’s going to be a Mr. Smith Goes to Washington type flick only with an anti-gun message. During an interview on the Howard Stern Show, Harvey was caught in a bit of hypocrisy when Howard mentioned that Harvey had stated Jews should have had guns during WWII.
I await this train wreck of a movie.
You mean Lethal Weapon? Sorry… I was racking my brain thinking of Bruce Willis and Danby Glover in a movie together and I was coming up blank. Hah!
Told you guys I’d get it wrong! Guess I just proved how little I’ve paid attention to Hollywood!
Thanks for straightening me out.
The anti-gun posters appearing in the Lethal Weapon 4 movie are because the director Richard Donner wanted them there. Supposedly, in the audio commentary bonus feature of the Lethal Weapon 4 DVD, Donner brags about how he adds anti-gun propaganda into his movies.
http://www.imfdb.org/wiki/Talk:Lethal_Weapon_4
Interesting, Brad!
I happen to have that DVD, I’ll have to see if mine has the commentary track and watch it next time my daughter takes a nap!
On the Appleseed 10/22, I’ve never understood why Ruger hasn’t simply made them all have an extended mag release.
It’s the one thing that nearly everyone seems to modify on a 10/22…
I thought they started doing that on their standard production a year or so back?
With you on the XCR. Enough ARs to outfit all the MAs on a CV, but still want an XCR.
Completely irrational . . . may have to buy one this year.
Mr. Weinstein thinks guns are necessary for self-defense, but only in other countries, during genocides and if the weapon is not personally owned.
Yes, guns will just magically show up once a country goes genicidal.
“The government is killing our people! It’s time to fight back!”
“Yes! Guns! We need guns! Lots of guns.”
“Right! Does anybody have any guns?”
“No. We weren’t allowed to have them.”
“Oh. Bummer.”
“Yeah… Real bummer.”
And more importantly, the software to know how to use them.
Training people to shoot well is a non-trivial endeavor. It requires a shooting culture that is broad based so that you can generate sufficient competition shooters and trainers to educate the rest of the shooters.
We’ve seen what happens when you destroy your shooting culture, even for LEOs in places like NY. Civilian sheep being genocided would have an even steeper learning curve to figure out how to use their bang sticks effectively.
I have an XCR. But I would not suggest anyone here entertain buying an XCR.
I bought it cash and carry back in 2010 in a 7.62×39 configuration. It had issues firing because of the common “7.62×39 in a 5.56 magazine well” issue that plagues so many guns. So that was not a RobArms issue, per se. I lived with it.
Annoyed by the constant 7.62×39 jam-ups, I decided to switch to 5.56. Then I went further, and Form-1’d the gun as an SBR before getting the 5.56 upper. I wish I could report that the ATF was my frustration point, but the ATF returned my Form 1 (in 2012) in less time than RobArms could unfuck their poor quality control.
The new upper arrived (post-tax stamp) only after two months of hearing, “I got the upper on the desk in front of me, and it’s going out today.” They even gave me shipping numbers that were entered into the carrier system, but which always showed nothing more than, ‘waiting for package from shipper facility’.
It finally arrives, but the upper will not mate with the lower. The retention/locking bolt does not fully seat. It takes a month to get an RMA for repair and it requires I send everything back (lower, upper, etc.). They would have to mill them to get them to work.
I send it, and wait. And wait. Fast forward half a year and RobArms refuses to return calls or emails. They have this awesome customer service where you cannot talk to a person; you just leave a message and hope they feel like calling you back (in general, they won’t).
What got them to call me back?
The fact this was an NFA gun. I left them a final message telling them that I was going to call the ATF and report the firearm lost or stolen, and that I have confirmation (with signature) that it arrived at their factory.
They called back within hours, and admitted they lost the gun. They begged for time to find it. A week later (after I called to tell them I was calling ATF), they finally found it. Then they started working on it. Or so they said. I was finally told that the reason everything was taking so long is because the only guy who could fix the guns was the owner – Alex Robinson – and that he didn’t have time to do it. It still took two months (and another call telling them I didn’t believe they ever found the gun and I was calling ATF) before they got it back to me.
Remarkably, it worked. Nicely, even. So much that I even wanted to like it.
But I won’t give Robinson Armament the time of day. I was polite. I was patient. I cut them slack because I run a small business and know how hard it is to juggle everything at once. But in the end, they took advantage of me.
Other notes:
– The Owner (Alex Robinson) comes across as a complete jackass. I won’t even post the links (because they are legendary…just Google him). He basically told his customers to eff off. He openly says to not complain about anything, or he’ll shitcan your service request and put you in the bottom of the pile (his words). But as I found out, they’ll do that even if you are friendly and patient.
– They have a booth at SHOT this year? Amazing. While I was having these issues I was at SHOT and figured I’d find these guys and hope a little face-time would help smooth things along. Problem was they could not afford a booth, or even share a booth. So they said they’d have a private space in a hotel…just like the “big boys” (who actually have a SHOT booth, though). Problem is their private space was nothing more than a hotel room someone was sleeping in and the hotel apparently said, “no, you cannot run a gun exposition in your hotel room.” Or something. I never got an honest answer. All I know is that I (and others) called to see where RobArms was holed up and the answer shifted constantly and the excuses piled high. Someone said that Alex stopped by one of the other gun booths at the show, but that’s about it.
The gun may be OK, but the firm that sells it is run by a man whose ego, lack of basic customer skills, and inattention to basic QC are going to kill it. I run a small business and am sympathetic to having to do everything yourself. Even if the product is great, you have to work hard as hell to service the customer. It’s tiring and sometimes shit falls through the cracks. The key is to acknowledge your limitations and be nice. Tell the customer the truth and ask them to work with you. Don’t avoid them.
I have placed this gun – in my mind – in the “lost” category. In other words, I expect it will eventually be a pile of metal that will only work with my personal ingenuity and willingness to fix it. In other words, I see this gun as a real mistake. Lost money. Lost time. Lost frustration. I won’t sell it, because I don’t want anyone else to have to deal with it.
I don’t shoot it anymore, because I don’t want it to break. Because when it breaks, I suspect I will have to throw it away (after chopping it and telling ATF). I am just not willing to send it back to Robinson, because I don’t have the energy to deal with their horrible incapability to do anything nice.
So that’s the wrinkle. I got a gun I like to shoot, but won’t shoot it because I don’t want the drama of dealing with the company that makes it.
If someone told me Alex Robinson retired and sold off the company to someone capable, I will rethink the above. But until he is out of the picture, I am going to personally tell you that my opinion is you stay far, far away from his firm, his guns, and his (lack of) service.
And understand that by me writing this here today, I will never receive a single bit of service from Robinson Armament. In other words, by sharing my story with you here today, I am guaranteeing that any future service will never be performed. That my gun will never be fixed, and that anything I need to fix it will never be shipped.
So read and understand that unlike most blog comments, this one is costing me something. Alex likely remembers who I am and won’t forgive any of this.
When you see an XCR, run the other way.
I don’t shoot it anymore, because I don’t want it to break. Because when it breaks, I suspect I will have to throw it away (after chopping it and telling ATF). I am just not willing to send it back to Robinson, because I don’t have the energy to deal with their horrible incapability to do anything nice.
If it helps, at that point, a local serious-gunsmith with a machine shop might well be able to Make It Go.
True, there. You are right and thank you for the advice.
Problem is I got a machine shop and would therefore feel required to DIY.
Fuck Alex Robinson. He took a good thing and ruined it for the rest of us.