As you might be able to tell, Friday posting is getting more difficult for me, since Friday is basically wall-to-wall meetings for me these days at work, and I’ve been busy enough with other work things to not really have time to do post-aheads the night before. Technically we have launched our new product that I have been working on since starting the new job nearly two years ago, but things don’t really get started until we make a sale. We’re getting pretty close, but it’s still crunch time. But with that, here’s the news for Friday, even though it’s Saturday.
Celebrate diversity. Wait, aren’t they pacifists?
Jim Geraghty has been pretty pessimistic about Ken Cuccinelli’s electoral prospects. McAullife has been throwing the standard “War on Women” playbook against Cuccinelli, who is a darling of social conservatives. Why does this tactic work so effectively in swing states? This is a question the GOP needs to ask itself.
What caliber for giant killer hornets?
JayG has landed a job as a professional gun writer! Congrats! Also in the “Congrats” genre, Weer’d is now father to a new baby girl.
Crushing dissent mercilessly. But hey, we’re told nothing like that could ever happen here by the same kinds of people.
People are upset Magpul hasn’t up and moved yet. Our company is currently looking to move, because we’re running out of space at our current location. We’re only a 25 person company. Trust me, even finding the right space takes a good bit of time. I would advise patience among gun owners.
“Common sense” used to involve banning guns.
I hope the Supreme Court puts the smack down on this practice among federal prosecutors, because it’s egregiously wrong.
Bloomberg has his fingerprints all over Rahm’s push for new gun control laws.
So it turns out that Magpul was all talk and no action. Although they claim to be making parts outside of CO, they are short on the details of just where those parts are being made. Magpul has had more than 6 months to plan and execute a move and has done little to this point. Given that Pmags are collecting dust a $10/mag it would seem like Magpul might have some bigger issues on its hands.
I wouldn’t say that yet. They are still claiming they are intending to leave. Like I said, we took a year to find a satellite location for just one part of a 25 person operation. We’re now looking for a whole new location, and several months into it, we’re nowhere near close to executing a move. And Magpul is a much more extensive operation than we are, and additionally, we’re a knowledge industry rather than manufacturing. If in three years Magpul is still in Colorado, I’d be concerned. Not even a year out from the Sandy Hook Massacre? I’d advise patience.
But you didn’t draw a line in the sand, like Magpul did. What concerns me is that Stag, PTR, Kahr, and others were quick to announce just where they’re moving. Magpul has still not said where they’re going or where they claim they’re making goods outside of CO.
That’s true, but running out of space for people is a real, bottom line issue. Money is at stake, and yet we’re still struggling to find the right space. And this is for 25 people, where we don’t have to the leverage to shake down the local politicians for the right tax breaks.
And I suspect you aren’t having to find a space that can handle the amount of machinery / industrial capacity that Magpul is.
It’s not like space doesn’t exist. PTR, Stag, and Ruger have shown that a move is possible if it means building a new facility. Magpul is between a rock and a hard place. If they move there will be costs. If they don’t move they will lose customers. As far as I am concerned, Magpul is another fad manufacturer. In a year or two there will be a new fad and no one will remember Magpul. I’ll just start buying Lancer stuff. First, Lancer is based in the Lehigh Valley. Second, Lancer is a sponsor of the PA Steel League.
Demanding that they move immediately instead of taking the time to find a good location is about as useful as screaming SHALL NOT BE INFRINGED.
“What caliber for giant killer hornets?”
.177 air gun pellet.
They also make .22 caliber air shot shells, but I imagine you’d have to be dangerously close to effectively utilize one of those.
Using firearms to kill flying insects requires far too much precision; Additionally, given their relative mass, there are massive rule 4 issues.
Therefore, the solution is to use flamethrowers.
I will submit to you that being a pacifist and having fun destroying paper targets aren’t necessarily incompatible.
I have no idea why this posted here; should have been posted down at the end of the page.
I agree… but I’ve generally thought that the Amish and Mennonites, though they are fine with hunting, were generally against arms that were useful for self-defense, because they didn’t believe in that if it meant violence.
That’s why I use a sub 6 ft/lb gun and target wadcutters. Great for grasshoppers as well and you can eat grasshoppers.
Not that it’s time and cost effective, but it can be done.
Does anyone else remember that sometime around the late ’50s, early ’60s there was a brief industry campaign to promote shooting sports utilizing smoothbore .22s and shot cartridges? One was an indoor trap shooting game, but I also remember an article in one of the Big Three outdoor magazines (e.g., Outdoor Life) about hunting dragonflies and other large flying insects with one of those .22 smoothbores. Obviously the ideas never caught on, but it intrigued me enough at the time that the concept has stayed in the back of my mind for all these years. (I used to find .22 shotshells very effective for shooting rats and mice indoors without doing any [obvious] structural damage. Don’t ask me for details.) :-)
I don’t remember, but i wasn’t even quite yet a twinkle in my father’s eye until the mid 1970s :)
McAuliffe’s ads are nothing short of being dishonest, disgusting, and shameful. Even worse is the fact that Cuccinelli does not seem to be running a campaign equipped to fight back.
McDonnell won the state hands down and did not make the mistake of angering the large share of federal workers and other Democrat constituencies. Cuccinelli was doing fine until recently, so what changed? Mcauliffe’s sleazy ads, the government shutdown, and piss poor campaigning.
But even accepting McCauliffe’s accusations are all bullshit, people believe it, and vote on it. Why? Maybe it’s not fair, but it works.
So… You run a campaign fit to deal with the latest “war on women” crap the Dems pull. Apparently Cuccinelli is too inept to read the DNC playbook and respond accordingly.
And exactly how does he respond effectively in the face of a press that won’t cover it honestly? Someone ought to file a lawsuit branding the media as making illegal in-kind campaign contributions.
Point is McAuliffe’s strategy was/is predictable and is characteristic of a politician with no substance to his claims. I guess Cuccinelli was not used to running against a Clinton lackey? I like the Libertarian candidate too, and think that if he had the campaign apparatus of the GOP behind him in that state, as well as a competent campaign staff (unlike Cuccinelli) he would have had the best chance.
Just thinking out loud: People are known by the company they keep, and candidates by the constituencies they try to appeal to. E.g., more candidates have been identified as “pro-gun” than have ever done anything tangible for gun owners.
I think if you were to itemize things said about Cuccinelli that weren’t strictly true, you might find he himself had been trying to imply that those are things he stood for, when appealing to another constituency that would not identify them as negatives.
He is a candidate who stands for positions that counter McAuliffe’s in many ways… Positions that are popular with the same folks who voted in majority numbers for Bob McDonnell. He also, unfortunately, tended to neglect the federal employee and indirect federal employee effects on votes. I believe he was never interested in getting those votes. However, he never got his reasoning out for any of his positions (again, poor campaigning) and he never got the last word in. Instead, the Clinton express was able to steamroll him. There is also the not-so-subtle element of bigotry on the other side here that McAuliffe capitalized on.
As Geraghty points out, McAuliffe is outspending Cuccinelli 2:1. Unless you are running against someone with a criminal conviction, that guarantees victory for the big spender. That matters way more than social conservative vs. libertarian.