Category: Business

IS GLOCK BUILDING A RIFLE? THE GUNWEBS AGAIN GO WILD

Over the weekend a fracas sparked in Europe over the British army rifle trials has led to a lot of speculation about Glock making a rifle.

While it is no secret that the Brits are looking to pick up an AR-ish rifle to equip their new Ranger units and Special Operations Brigade  in lieu of the troubled SA80/L85 Enfield bullpup (I mean, who really likes bullpups, anyway?) Sean Odinson, a former British Army sniper and defense blogger on Saturday released supposed leaked images of a Glock-branded AR platform. This, of course, leaped over the Atlantic and appeared everywhere Glock-related over the weekend.

Dubbed the GR-115F, which probably will end up being the id of the troll who spoofed this whole thing together, the carbine adds fuel to the ongoing fire that Glock is entering the long gun market. 

 

Glock rifle
The GR-115F, the story goes, is part of a tender for the British Army in a new Alternative Individual Weapon System rifle for Ranger and special operations units. (Photos: screen grab via Youtube) 

 

The furniture and BUIS are Magpul while the receivers are a bit more geometrically refined and have ambi surface controls. The barrel length seems to run on the short side and is coupled with a suppressor, which gels with the contract tender that the gun be optimized to run with a suppressor. The handguard uses the same number of M-LOK slots that, as MrGunsNGear says in the below video, is also right on target for the AIWS tender.

In short, he thinks it could be real.

We’ve emailed our contacts over at Glock. Not holding our breath here for a response, but we’ll see.

Well, I  read it that way too, so………

Poll in Gun Control-Friendly Washington, D.C. Shows Americans Don’t Want Banks Monitoring Their Gun Purchases.

The recent news about major credit card companies tracking purchases at firearm retailers is ruffling feathers. That is, with everyone except the nation’s largest gun control groups and supporters.

The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) announced late last month it created a firearm-specific Merchant Category Code (MCC) and it’s gone over like a lead balloon. In the nation’s Capitol, a news station tried to gauge support for the code. What should’ve been a slam dunk in one of the country’s strictest gun control cities, the exact opposite happened.

Gun Control Praise

News outlets all covered the new MCC for firearm-related purchases. The Washington Post reported, “Visa, Mastercard, AmEx to start categorizing gun shop sales,” asserting the nation’s major credit card companies all agreed to implement the new tracking code. Gun control advocates praised the news.

“Today’s announcement is a critical first step towards giving banks and credit card companies the tools they need to recognize dangerous firearm purchasing trends,” John Feinblatt, president of Everytown for Gun Safety, said. “But this is only the first step.”

Moms Demand Action’s Shannon Watts praised the announcement too. “These new merchant codes will help banks and financial institutions track suspicious and potentially illegal gun purchases.”

New York’s Democratic Attorney General Letitia James added, “Today’s decision requiring credit cards to categorize gun sales is a big victory.”

One of the biggest cheerleaders for the new tracking code is Priscilla Sims Brown, president and CEO of New York-based, union-owned Amalgamated Bank, the gun control advocacy bank that applied for the new code from ISO. “We won,” Sims Brown stated.

The Survey Says?

Law-abiding Americans see it as nothing more than overreach, even though gun control schemers are praising the code. There has been no definition by the code’s backers as to what “suspicious activity” means. No word on what the financial institutions will do with the information and what stores will specifically be coded. Americans see the ruse.

In Washington, D.C., FOX 5 News polled their audience on the new MCC. They asked, “Do you think credit card companies should track gun sales?” In a city that has some of the country’s strictest gun control laws, and whose citizens overwhelmingly vote for gun control-supportive politicians, the response was resoundingly clear.

All told, 75 percent of respondents voted “No.” That’s crystal clear. Americans understand the code isn’t about safety at all. It’s about tracking them.

Credit Card Companies Pushed

The MCC announcement came at a pertinent time. The CEOs of major banks were grilled by lawmakers last week in Washington, D.C., over the issue. Bank CEOs from Wells Fargo, Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, Truist Financial Corporation, U.S. Bancorp and PNC Financial all faced questions, mostly dodged on answers and didn’t deny the banks’ consideration of implementing the code, while not outright dismissing the practice.

Citigroup CEO Jane Fraser provided only a vanilla acknowledgement while not saying the bank would reject using the code. “We respect the Second Amendment, as I said, we do not intend to use the code to restrict or limit any purchases or firearm sales by our credit card customers.”

JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon was similarly coy.

“We actually don’t know what they use it for, and we don’t want to be in the business of telling American citizens what they can do with their money. We understand your concerns over the issue,” he told members of the Senate Banking Committee.

In a letter responding to U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and several senators supportive of the new tracking code, American Express Executive Vice President Brett Loper wrote, “We require merchants who accept American Express cards to adhere to all applicable laws. Our policy has been, and will remain, that our customers are able to make legal firearm purchases using our Cards.”

The announcement of the new tracking code for sales at federally-licensed firearm retailers has given the country’s largest banks just enough wiggle room to avoid being specific. In most cases, they acknowledge the code was created and state they won’t use it to deny law-abiding Americans the ability to buy lawful firearms, or that those Americans would be flagged by authorities for “suspicious activity.” Their answers are far from clear.

What is clear is that Americans don’t support the tracking code. Even in a gun-control city like Washington, D.C.

 Collapse Of Energy, Food, Transportation Systems Prompt Calls for Government Nationalization of Industries – Echoes 1930s Push for Great Reset Style Reforms.

By:  – Climate Depot September 21, 2022 11:01 AM

Climate Depot Special Report

The continuing fallout from COVID lockdown policies — from the economic collapse to the supply chain issues, to energy, transportation, and food shortages — is reigniting calls and prompting the nationalization of industries in Europe, the U.S, Canada, and Australia.

The modus operandi of the Great Reset (AKA Build Back Better) is to intentionally collapse the current system with policies designed to create a crisis, havoc, and shortages. And the world has descended into chaos since the COVID lockdowns of March of 2020.

See: Yahoo Finance: ‘Firewood is the new gold’ – prices & theft jump in Europe as Russia’s gas cutoff boosts wood demand ahead of winter – 1000% increase in EU energy prices  &

NYT: ‘Crippling’ energy bills force Europe’s factories to go dark

The Great Food Reset has arrived: Expect ‘real’ food shortages, Biden declares

WHY IT IS FINALLY TIME TO NATIONALIZE AMERICA’S FOSSIL FUEL INDUSTRY TO END OUR SPIRALING ENERGY WAR

California car ban: ‘This is the planned rationing of vehicles’ – ‘They have energy shortages, food shortages, now they want vehicle shortages’ – Calif. borrows Cuban & East German policies

Once the inevitable societal chaos ensues, a huge coordinated push to promote nationalization or government takeover of the impacted industries ensues. It is always claimed that the “free market” failed, and now only government can come in and clean up the mess. The advocates of nationalization usually bill it as a “temporary” nationalization of the industries, much like “15 days to slow the spread” or “2 weeks to flatten the curve” were billed as temporary measures. See: Salon mag in 2022 noted “the long American history of taking over industries during a time of national crisis” and claimed that “temporary nationalization helped get America through the crisis” of World War II. 

Stuart Chase, a key advisor to former President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, envisioned an early version of the Great Reset in the 1930s and 1940s, complete with calls for government “control of energy sources—hydroelectric power, coal, petroleum, natural gas.; The control of transportation—railway, highway, airway, waterway; and the control of agricultural production.”

Chase loved the idea of managing all aspects of society. He asked at the end of his 1932 book, A New Deal, “Why should the Soviets have all the fun remaking the world?” Chase’s lust for Soviet ideology could be updated to 2022 by replacing the “Soviets” for “China”.

Here is Chase’s 2022 proposed updated motto:

“Why should China have all the fun remaking the world?”

Continue reading “”

“NASDAQ Nancy” holds up bills on congressional trading while the insider rot spreads.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi hemmed and hawed again last week about the House plan to rein in sketchy trades by members of Congress and their families, making empty noises about getting it done in the wake of a brutal New York Times report ID’ing almost 100 members — nearly 20%! — who reported trades in apparent conflict with their duties as overseers of laws and regulations around American industry in 2019-’21.

She’s plainly stalling, and for obvious reasons: Pelosi’s a byword for such trades with her husband — financier Paul Pelosi — making moves that regularly beat the market, often in sectors highly vulnerable to legislation the speaker can advance or kill.

Indeed, she’s long blocked real action on this problem, saying she’s open to considering the various bills now proposed in the House but doing nothing.

Yet the Times report shows she’s far from the only legislator with a vested interested in stifling such bills.

Consider California’s shouty progressive Rep. Ro Khanna. He loves to chastise Wall Street on Twitter. But that sure didn’t stop him from reporting an eye-popping 10,500 stock trades involving nearly 900 companies via trusts under his wife and kids’ names — of which a staggering 149 may be conflicted, including moves in companies under investigation by committees he sat on. Typical hypocrisy from Khanna, who also enjoyed massive donations from the financial industry during his 2016 campaign.

And what about NJ Dem Josh Gottheimer? He reported massive trades in his former employer Microsoft while serving on a committee holding hearings on cybersecurity issues, including a hack that hit the software giant.

Don’t forget Tennessee’s GOP Rep. Diana Harshbarger, who (it was revealed last year) failed to report in a timely way trades worth between $700,000 and $10.9 million and is still, per the Times, mega-active in the markets. Oopsie!

Yes, dozens of members, per the Times analysis, report small-scale trades here and there, likely totally routine.

But the many major moves made by powerful politicians with access to sensitive information long before it becomes public — even if they were in good faith — stink to high heaven.

And credit where it’s due: Some members, again on both sides of the aisle, have for years been trying to address this very problem. The STOCK Act of 2012 made some inroads on this front — but as the Times report shows, it went nowhere near far enough.

Now a host of bills around the issue have been sponsored by GOP Rep. Michael Cloud, Dem Sen. Elizabeth Warren and others.

Pelosi’s reasons for standing pat on the House side are obvious. But the Times report shows that the whole body has a clear disincentive to make a move toward reform. As a DC insider told The Post, “You’re not getting members of Congress to self-regulate the money they can or can’t make. Why would they do something that doesn’t benefit them?”

The rot, in other words, is everywhere. And it’s going to take a wholesale cleaning — plus a lot of backbone, including the steel to take on knife-fighter Pelosi — to excise it. Absent real reform, Congress will keep losing ever-more faith and credit from the voters, who now face a skidding market without the benefit of insider info.

Ahhhhh HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH IIIIIIII Like it!

New Software Negates Latest “Ghost Gun” Rules

A new software program (protected under the First Amendment) is protecting the Second Amendment. The software allows a 3D printer to create a “jig,” a simple but necessary piece of plastic that is used in assembling a firearm at home.

After the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) issued its latest infringement on the Second Amendment, software developers quickly created open source (free to the world) software to allow owners of 3D printers to print out their own jig. In essence this is an end-run around the latest ATF transgression of precious rights.

The continuing flow of misinformation from the ATF sets up the straw man to justify its latest violation of the Second Amendment:

To help keep guns from being sold to convicted felons and other prohibited purchasers, the rule makes clear that retailers must run background checks before selling kits that contain the parts necessary for someone to readily make a gun.

To help law enforcement trace guns used in a crime, the rule modernizes the definition of frame or receiver, clarifying what must be marked with a serial number – including in easy-to-build firearm kits.

To help reduce the number of unmarked and hard-to-trace “ghost guns,” the rule establishes requirements for federally licensed firearms dealers and gunsmiths to have a serial number added to 3D printed guns or other un-serialized firearms they take into inventory.

It admitted that its latest transgression generated a lot of pushback from gun owners:

On May 7, 2021, the Department of Justice issued a notice of proposed rulemaking, and during the 90-day open comment period, the ATF received more than 290,000 comments, the highest number of comments submitted to a proposed rule in ATF’s history.

Here’s the loophole in the new regulation that software developers are exploiting: if the jig isn’t part of the “kit,” then there’s no firearm under the latest definition and hence no required background check. Specifically, the rule states that when an unfinished frame or receiver is “distributed or possessed with a compatible jig or template,” it is now automatically considered to be a firearm. Leave out the jig, however, and the” kit” is incomplete and doesn’t fall under the rule.

On its website, Tactical Machining in Orlando, Florida, offers this update to its customers:

As many of you know or heard, ATF’s lawless and corrupt ruling went into effect on August 24, 2022. At the advice of our counsel, Tactical Machining was advised to maintain a holding pattern. Since then, we have some developing updates.

Per ATF, 80% AR-15 lowers are still legal!

In recent testimony during lawsuits against the ATF, they have admitted in open court that the “Final rule” does not restrict the sale of 80% lowers IF they are not sold with a jig/instructions or Templates.

Our local ATF agent tasked with enforcing the new rule changes also confirmed, in writing, that all of Tactical Machining’s 80% products are legal to buy and sell since we stopped offering our jigs.

Jim Jusick, Tactical’s design engineer and manager, quoted this from that letter from the ATF:

As we’ve been instructed, and our understanding here in Orlando, the unfinished receiver, with a jig, instructions, or template is NOT A FIREARM.

The combination of such an item (unfinished receiver) with other parts (excluding the jig) does not reach the standard for Readily Convertible.

In other words, your manufacture and selling of unfinished receivers with a lower parts kit [without the jig] does not meet the [newly defined] firearm threshold.

Just as was the case with radar detectors, developers were always one step ahead of the enforcers. In their zeal to criminalize all gun owners and eventually disarm them, the enforcers continue to play catch-up ball with the developers.

 STREISAND EFFECT: Angry Harpies Complain About Kids’ Football League’s Fundraiser Featuring an AR-15, Turn a Local Raffle Into a National Event.

North Carolina’s East Henderson Youth Football and Cheerleading League (EHYFC) poked a woke hornet’s next by offering an AR-15 as the grand prize in a fundraiser for kids sports.  Unsurprisingly, some easily-offended types turned their ire on the EHYFC for such an “insensitive” and “deplorable” choice of prizes.

But not only did the youth organization’s leadership not fold, they pushed back and the local raffle has now sold tickets nationwide. Congratulations gun-haters, you’ve discovered the meaning of the Streisand Effect!

It seems that nothing sells tickets quite like a fundraiser featuring America’s favorite rifle, the AR-15. They play well as prizes even in blue states like my Illinois. But in more freedom-loving states like North Carolina? Puh-leeze. Who doesn’t need another AR-15 in their safe? They’re like 10/22…every gun owner should have a few.

The FN-15 Freedom Stick. Courtesy of FN.

The EHYFC further triggered local Karens by having the effrontery to describe the rifle as a “freedom stick.”

From Breitbart . . .

People across the nation rallied for North Carolina’s East Henderson Youth Football and Cheerleading League (EHYFC) after the league faced backlash for raffling an AR-15 rifle to raise money for equipment and supplies.

On September 5 Breitbart News reported that the EHYFC was raffling an FN 15, and that an anonymous parent had criticized the decision to do so.

The New York Post noted that the parent told WLOS, “I was honestly shocked when I received the message that the children were going to be selling an assault rifle because of what’s going on at schools around the country. I thought it was in very bad taste for them to choose a weapon that is being used against children.”

What did the critics suggest the organization do instead to raise funds for the kids? I’m glad you asked! On Facebook, the trolls came out in force, like this guy . . .

Marshall Coleman — Freedom Stick???? WTF! Own up to the Freedom Stick being a killing apparatus. Try a bake sale next time. What a perverted message to send to the very youth you purportedly care so deeply about.

Try a bake sale next time?  Well, here’s the reply from the Youth Football team’s leadership.

EHYFC-Youth Football and Cheerleading Marshall Coleman that’s a great idea! We work, go to school, practice Mon, Tues, church Wed, practice Thurs, game days are from 2-9pm Sat, back to church on Sun. When and where can we meet you to pick up those baked goods? We’re gonna need a lot! Preferably sugar free, low carb, gluten free, dairy free, nut free, keto friendly, vegan, and organic. There’s just so many different allergies, sensitivies, and preferences out there.

EHYFC leadership isn’t bashful about pushing back against the harpies. As they told a reporter, they’re handing everything openly and within the law…

“We aren’t offering an assault rifle. We are offering an FN 15 Patrol Carbine,” a spokesperson for EHYFCL told Fox News Digital. “This is an ArmaLite 15-style rifle, not fully automatic, which by definition excludes it from being classified as an assault rifle. We are following all ATF guidelines. The item is being held at an FFL, the recipient must complete an ATF form 4473 and pass an NICS background check before taking possession of it.”

News of the giveaway — and the resulting outrage — spread the word and as a result, EHYFC is getting  corporate sponsorships and offers for professional help . . .

Keith Raynor — Just printed and sent in a corporate sponsorship form for the year. Please thank the “Karen” parent for me because without her I would not have known you were raising funds for the season. If you all need a pro-bono North Carolina CPA to file anything with the IRS because your gross receipts push you over the reporting limit, I am right here. I have clients in Henderson Co already.

The offended raised enough of a stink that news and story of the EHYFC’s fundraiser went national. Again from Breitbart . . .

The mother said, “We have far surpassed our goals, and now have the ability to pass those blessings on to others in need. We have read every message, transaction note and email that has come our way. The supportive messages are coming from both retired and active military personnel, law enforcement officers, firefighters, fellow youth organization leaders, teachers, lawyers, entrepreneurs and grandparents trying to save our backwards society.”

In other words, they didn’t go woke and now they’re far from broke. Kudos to them. Now, where can I get some of those tickets?

Where’s Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigig?

Freight Train Strike: The Biggest Looming Crisis You’ve Heard Almost Nothing About.

On the menu today: Starting sometime Friday — perhaps as early as just after midnight — U.S. freight-rail workers could go on strike or experience a lockout, and the economic consequences could be far-reaching. What Americans may only be realizing now is that in some ways, the effects of a strike are already here, as freight companies have already halted certain shipments in preparation for a potential strike, and Amtrak has suspended certain routes. Your commuter rails may not be running Friday morning. Also, a farewell to Ken Starr, and a long, fun talk with an old friend.

Why You Should Care about a Freight-Rail Strike

We live in a country where the (currently) ruling political party and most of the national media have a symbiotic relationship. (Jen Psaki started work at NBC News this week.) One of the problems with this dynamic is that when the ruling class decides something is important — say, emphasizing the issue of abortion as the midterm elections approach — it tends to squeeze out everything that the ruling party doesn’t want emphasized.

Don’t get me wrong; abortion is a hugely important issue to many Americans. You can read more about the abortion bill South Carolina senator Lindsey Graham proposed yesterday from Alexandra DeSanctis and Charlie Cooke and John McCormack and Kathryn Jean Lopez.

But there are a lot of other things going on in this world, and one issue that seems spectacularly under-covered — a ticking time bomb, if you will — is that starting at 12:01 a.m. Friday, about a day and a half from now, if there isn’t a new labor deal between freight-rail unions and employers, the U.S. economy will be . . . derailed.

Maybe there will be an eleventh-hour deal; I suspect many casual observers simply assume that a deal will get done because the consequences of even a brief work stoppage would be so far-reaching. But freight companies are already halting certain shipments in preparation for a potential strike, so in some ways, the consequences of a strike are already here.

The American Association of Railroads said this week that it’s begun taking steps to secure the shipments of hazardous and security-sensitive materials, such as chlorine used to purify drinking water and chemicals used in fertilizer. It also warned that “other freight customers may also start to experience delayed or suspended service over the course of [this] week, as the railroads prepare for the possibility that current labor negotiations do not result in a resolution and are required to safely and securely reduce operations.”

At noon today, Norfolk Southern will close all gates to intermodal traffic — that means anything using multiple modes of transportation such as rail, ship, aircraft, and truck. BSNF Railway, one of the largest freight railroads in North America, stopped accepting intermodal traffic as of 12:01 a.m. this morning.

Amtrak has already suspended most cross-country routes and announced that, “It will only operate trains that can reach their final destination by 12:01 a.m. on Friday, when a freight rail strike or lockout could begin.” Without a deal, most Amtrak operations in California will be suspending operations starting on Thursday.

A freight-rail strike will also bring commuter-rail services to a halt in some areas: “Virginia Railway Express said if there is a strike it would immediately stop all of its commuter train service because Norfolk Southern owns the tracks for VRE’s Manassas Line, and CSX owns the tracks for its Fredericksburg Line.” Across the Potomac in Maryland, “Since CSX owns and maintains the Camden and Brunswick lines in addition to dispatching MARC trains, any labor strike would result in the immediate suspension of all MARC Camden and Brunswick Line service until a resolution is reached.” It’s the same story for Metra, the commuter-rail system serving the city of Chicago and its surrounding suburbs, and Metrolink, the commuter-rail service that serves southern California.

The U.S. Department of Transportation estimated that a freight-rail strike would cost the economy about $2 billion a day, but that’s just a big, abstract figure in most people’s minds. What Americans will notice is all kinds of products getting scarcer and more expensive (again).  As our Dominic Pino notes, crude oil, natural-gas liquids, refined products, petrochemicals, and plastics are transported by rail, meaning that a disruption in freight-rail service is likely to spur a gas-price increase (again). The average price for a gallon of regular unleaded gas nationwide is currently $3.70, which is better than the $5 per gallon price of mid June, but it’s still high by historical standards.

Once again, if you read local press or trade publications, you realize how many things in this country grind to a halt if there’s a freight-rail strike. From EnergyWire:

Chemicals make up the second-largest category of rail freight after coal — 55,000 carloads a week — and there aren’t enough trucks and barges to handle the volume, said Jason Miller, a professor in the department of supply chain management at Michigan State University.

A prolonged strike would have a bigger impact on the economy than the shutdowns during the Covid-19 pandemic, Miller said.

“At least during Covid, you able to keep [chemical] production going, oil production going,” he said. “You can’t do that with a rail strike.”

Farmers have a limited window to get their harvested crops to buyers before the food spoils, and for many crops, this is harvest time; farmers are now wondering if the usual rail options will be available after Friday:

A painful example of supply chain concern can be found in soybean farming. Hungry markets in Asia and elsewhere count on soybeans to make the ships in the Gulf of Mexico and the west coast.

“It’s gonna be devastating because just about all of the soybeans that are produced here go to a crush plant, and that crush plant is in Hastings, and they send two unit trains of soybean meal per week to the Pacific Northwest,” Greving said. He sits on the USDA United Soybean Board. “That is loaded on bulk vessels there and shipped to Southeast Asia.”

The price of oil affects everybody, farmers included. A rail shutdown would also stop the delivery of corn to most ethanol plants.

Remember, many of the world’s food markets are still reeling from the effects of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the near-complete shutdown of Ukraine’s food exports.

Yesterday, I briefly mentioned that a strike could disrupt the flow of coal to power plants. Grist lays out why there aren’t any realistic alternatives to get coal to those plants:

Because the fuel is so heavy and takes up so much space, rail is the only economical way to transport it from mines to power plants: The average coal train consists of 140 cars that each hold about as much coal as could fit on ten trucks. Even if coal could be shifted onto trucks, the trucking industry itself has also been experiencing labor shortages, and there’s not much excess truck capacity to absorb rail freight. . . .

“Coal stockpiles are already at historic lows in the United States,” said [John Ward, the executive director of the National Coal Transportation Association, a trade group representing coal shippers and buyers]. “Any further interruptions could be disastrous for power generation.

In the good old days, it wasn’t uncommon for utilities to have a 60- or 90-day supply of fuel, but I don’t know anybody who has that luxury now. If it became an extended strike, the consequences could be dire.” Should utilities burn through their stockpiles, they’ll have to slow down generation to save supply, which could lead to power shortages during times of peak demand. Prices would jump for as long as the supply backlog lasted.

The worst-affected places would be states like West Virginia and Missouri, which generate around 90 percent of their electricity from coal and don’t have the opportunity to switch to natural gas on short notice. Even states with large gas supplies will struggle, though, since gas markets are also tight as producers export large quantities of gas to Europe.

In case you’re wondering, no, trucks cannot pick up the slack. The American Trucking Association says it simply doesn’t have the spare trucks or manpower. “Idling all 7,000 long distance daily freight trains in the U.S. would require more than 460,000 additional long-haul trucks every day, which is not possible based on equipment availability and an existing shortage of 80,000 drivers,” ATA president and CEO Chris Spear wrote in a letter to Congress. “As such, any rail service disruption will create havoc in the supply chain and fuel inflationary pressures across the board.”

In other words, the strike scheduled to begin in, what, 36 to 40 hours after you read this, would be a far-reaching economic calamity.

And, in the eyes of some analysts, the country is in this spot because of the Biden administration’s decision-making, which aimed to maximize the leverage of its union allies:

“That this might occur right before the midterm elections is entirely self-inflicted by the Biden administration, where two of President Biden’s National Mediation Board [NMB] members took the bizarre step in June of terminating board-guided mediation two months early and starting the 90-day countdown to a possible rail strike,” Scribner told FOX Business, calling the move “unprecedented.”

If the NMB had stuck to the original schedule, Scribner says, the cooling-off period would have ended in mid-November. But instead, the board decided to cut things short.

If this was indeed some deliberate Biden administration strategy, you must wonder how well it thought this through, or whether the administration’s plan counted on a deal being reached by now. Because if there’s anything we know Joe Biden is loath to do, it’s suspending Amtrak service.

By the way, the potential railroad strike is mentioned in the 29th paragraph of today’s newsletter over at Politico. Today’s Axios newsletter does not mention the potential strike at all.

Hawley Calls Out Credit Card Companies for Tracking Gun-Related Purchases

On Tuesday, Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) called out three major credit card companies over their decision to separate gun-related purchases from other transactions made with their payment cards.

To recap, the Associated Press reported this week that Visa said on Saturday that it will start separately categorizing sales made on their payment methods at gun shops. The report described this as a “major win” for those in favor of gun control, claiming it will “help better track suspicious surges of gun sales that could be a prelude to a mass shooting.” Mastercard and American Express said they would categorize these types of sales as well.

Townhall site Bearing Arms noted that this came after New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) urged credit card companies to “do their part” to stop gun violence.

Bearing Arms also noted that the CEO of Amalgamated Bank claims this move by credit card companies “answers the call of millions.”

In a letter to the CEOs of Visa, Mastercard and American Express, Hawley explained how this move “attempts to undermine the Second Amendment’s protections” and that the policy is “ripe for abuse.”

I write to express serious concern with your decision to separately categorize gun-related purchases from other retail transactions made with your payment cards so that firearm purchases can be more easily tracked,” Hawley wrote, before outlining how the policy targets law-abiding Americans.

Too often, companies have abused their market power to target the constitutional rights of conservatives and others with minority viewpoints. Big Tech companies systematically deplatformed those who sought to discuss the efficacy of masks and vaccines or raise concerns about the integrity of our elections. The crowdfunding platform GoFundMe blocked donations to the Canadian “Freedom Rally” trucker convoy. And WePay, a payment processor subsidiary of JPMorgan Chase – the largest bank in the United States – refused to do business with Missouri conservatives seeking to host an event with Donald Trump, Jr. Your proposal to track firearm-related purchases further threatens Americans who are simply exercising their constitutional rights.

The Second Amendment is clear: the right of the people to keep and bear arms is guaranteed to law-abiding citizens and “shall not be infringed.” Whether this infringement is by the federal government or powerful corporations seeking to ostracize citizens for exercising their rights, I will oppose all attempts to undermine the Second Amendment’s protections.

Visa, Mastercard, American Express, and other payment card companies should not distinguish lawful firearm-related purchases from other retail purchases. Americans have had enough of massive companies using their market power to drive ordinary people out of the public square. These practices must end.

Julio reported this month how Texas gubernatorial candidate Beto O’Rourke, who is running against Texas’ Republican Governor Greg Abbott, had called for credit card companies to “cut off the sales of weapons of war today” when he was running for president in 2019.

In 2019, Visa CEO Alfred Kelly told CNBC that it would continue to “facilitate” gun purchases as long as it’s legal to do so.

“We are guided by the federal laws in a country, and our job is to create and to facilitate fair and secure commerce,” Kelly told the outlet. The came after reports broke that payment platforms Square and PayPal do not allow their services to be used for gun sales.

Kelly added that lawmakers “need to do their job” when it comes to guns and that “if we start to get in the mode of being legislators it’s’ a very slippery slope.”

“We shouldn’t be determining what’s right or wrong in terms of people’s purchases,” he said at the time.

Senator Cory “Spartacus” Booker introduces bill to limit how gun dealers may dissolve their businesses

Spartacus is at it again. Senator Cory Booker from New Jersey couldn’t sit idle for too long without bringing forward some sort of an anti-gun proposal. In his free time, when he’s not embarrassing Garden Staters with his antics in Congress, or allegedly slipping out of the back door of his Newark home when he was mayor to head to his real home, Booker loves to trample on the fundamental right to keep and bear arms. Booker, who fancied himself a people’s mayor of sorts, with his publicity stunt living in a building scheduled for demolition in a high crime area, has no need for firearms when he has security to look after him.

Funny how Booker’s alleged experience did not set off any light bulbs on why the Second Amendment is so important. Had the then mayor and now Senator been paying less attention to allegedly slipping out back doors, and having guests come in through back doors under the cloak of darkness, he would have figured out quickly that a firearm is borderline a necessity in the city he managed to mismanage. On September 8th Senator Sparticus introduced a bill to limit how dealers that lose their licenses shall deal with their inventory.

The bill, S.4812 Fire Sale Loophole Closing Act has explicit instructions on how a dealer that loses their license shall dispose of their goods. The bill is not a new bill, with the first one being introduced by former Congressman Gary Ackerman, a Democrat from New York in 2010. Every session of Congress since Ackerman’s introduction of this bill has seen a bill of the same title introduced. This is a companion bill to the previously introduced House version, which Representative David Cicilline introduced December 9th of 2021.

What’s the bill intend to do? From the bill text we have:

To amend chapter 44 of title 18, United States Code, to restrict the ability of a person whose Federal license to import, manufacture, or deal in firearms has been revoked, whose application to renew such a license has been denied, or who has received a license revocation or renewal denial notice, to transfer business inventory firearms, and for other purposes.

Some select highlights from the bill include:

“(aa) (1) (A) It shall be unlawful for a person who has been notified by the Attorney General that the Attorney General has made a determination to revoke a license issued to the person under this chapter to import, manufacture, or deal in firearms, or to deny an application of the person to renew such a license, to—

“(i) transfer a business inventory firearm of the person—
“(I) into a personal collection of the person; or
“(II) to an employee of the person, or to an individual described in section 923(d)(1)(B) with respect to the person; or
“(ii) receive a firearm that was a business inventory firearm of the person as of the date the person received the notice.

Essentially, if a gun dealer loses their license, which is a very easy thing to do today with the ATF revoking FFLs over typos, transcription errors, and clerical errors, a person would be subjected to imprisonment of up to five years if their conduct was considered “willful”, if they do not dispose of inventory “properly”.

The crazy thing about this, why not a personal inventory? What’s the big deal? The loss of an FFL does not make someone a disqualified person, not in a world where the ATF is revoking left and right. Why not an employee of?

If there was ever a time when the relevance of such a measure would be lost, that’d be now. In the past, not that the ATF has a stellar record of doing what they’re supposed to, but in the past if a dealer would lose their license over some sort of an egregious infraction, I can see why we’d want to ensure the inventory would be ushered outside the control of any rogue dealers. But today? I don’t think so. Not how our current administration is dealing with things.

Understand that the requirement that a dealer even need to have an FFL in the first place can be construed as unconstitutional, further forcing said entity to dispose of their property in a manner different than the lawful owner would prefer is too close to the pinko’s dream of no private property.

It’s not likely that this measure gets passed in both chambers and makes its way to the Napper in Chief. It has been introduced and re-introduced every congress for more than a decade. Although, many laws were bills in waiting on the sidelines or advocated for many times over before they became law. We’ll be keeping an eye on the progress of this measure. With the midterms around the corner and the session ending in a few months, this is likely to gain little traction. Booker managed to wrangle in a whopping zero co-sponsors.

Retailers are turning to good guys with guns

Mass shootings happen in grocery stores and malls. We’ve seen way too many of those cases over the years to think otherwise.

Further, a lot of these places don’t play well with the idea of good guys with guns. They are often gun-free zones, after all.

Yet after mass shootings in Buffalo, Colorado Springs, and El Paso, among others, it seems that retailers are thinking just a bit differently. They’re hiring armed security.

While a national debate rages over whether armed guards should be stationed at public places like schools, retailers around the country are beefing up armed security presence in stores, mostly using ex-police and military. Since July 2021, there’s been a 108% increase in demand for armed guards at grocery stores, according to Allied Universal, one of the world’s largest security staffing firms, which works with many of the nation’s biggest retailers and shopping malls.

“There’s been an absolute distinct change in security and the challenges” facing retailers since the pandemic, said Steve Jones, Allied Universal’s CEO. “All of them have had to relook at their security posture and all of them have had to add additional layers of security.”

In December, Iowa-based grocery chain Hy-Vee said it would be adding armed guards to its stores. The move was intended to “provide another layer of safety and security for our customers,” chief operating officer Jeremy Gosch said in a statement. The 285-store grocer released a video that shows security staff in black uniforms roaming the aisles, appearing to have badges, guns, handcuffs and pepper spray. The decision was not prompted by any one incident, the company said, but rather a rise in retail theft nationwide.

Another grocery chain, ShopRite, added armed guards at some stores in the early innings of the pandemic when it faced a crush of customers rushing to stock up on items for quarantine. Guards patrolled the aisles and stood at the front door.

Now, understand that these guards are there for far more pedestrian violent crimes than mass shootings. That’s also a good thing since those crimes are also far, far more common than mass shootings as well.

For any violent crime, though, what you need to prevent such things is good guys with guns, even if that means hiring one of your very own.

And that’s really what armed security is supposed to be. While they’re meant to be deterrents, it’s not because of a shiny badge that looks like a police badge if you don’t look too closely. It’s because there’s a good guy with a gun on the premises.

However, these stores should also remember that this isn’t a universal solution.

Private, armed security is a good thing, don’t get me wrong, but they’re not going to necessarily be able to stop all such violent crimes. After all, look at Buffalo. That store had armed security. The guard was killed early in the attack.

A uniformed, armed guard is a deterrent, but also a target for those who truly want to unleash horrors upon the world. What we need is more than just armed guards.

We need good guys with guns across the board.

We need average Americans to be not just allowed to carry but encouraged to do so. We need a legion of armed citizens–good guys with guns–who can go about their lives and, in the process, provide herd immunity from violence.

Armed guards are good. They’re not perfect, so why pretend this is enough? It’s not, so let’s do what we can to make sure they’re not someone’s only line of defense.

37 Months Straight: America Is Buying 1 Million Guns A Month

While they might not be the super records of years past, guns and overall firearms sales are still going through the roof.

According to newly released FBI data, background checks exceeded 2.51 million in August, which was consistent with the previous two summers. However, Small Arms Analytics & Forecasting (SAAF) estimates August 2022 U.S. firearms unit sales were at about 1.4 million units, a year-over-year decrease of 3.8 percent relative to August 2021. The decrease affected the handgun segment (−2.7 percent) significantly less than it did the long-gun segment (−7.2 percent). SAAF’s firearms unit sales estimates and forecasts are based on raw data taken from the FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS), adjusted for checks unlikely to be related to end-user firearms sales.

“Normally August sales are ‘bumped up’ relative to July sales by about 10% to 30%, but this has not been the case for the past three years, possibly reflecting different purchasing patterns since covid-19 arrived in the U.S,” said SAAF Chief Economist Jurgen Brauer.

Even with the decline, however, August 2022 was the 37th consecutive month topping more than one million civilian firearms sold – and by a considerable margin.

Strong Second Amendment Support: A Reason for Guns Sales Boom?

Strong firearms sales suggest continued support for the Second Amendment, even as there have been – or more likely in reaction to the – continued calls from lawmakers for additional gun control measures. Earlier this summer, the United States House and Senate passed a bipartisan gun-reform bill, which President Joe Biden subsequently signed into law. That $13 billion measure had been designed to toughen background checks for the youngest gun buyers, keep firearms from more domestic violence offenders, and also to help states put in place red flag laws that make it easier for authorities to take weapons from people who are thought to be “dangerous.”

Opponents of the law have suggested it unfairly punishes law-abiding citizens while doing little to keep guns out of the hands of criminals.

“August’s figures show there is a clear and steady desire by the American public for lawful firearm ownership,” the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF), the firearms industry trade association said via a statement, reported by Newsmax.

“Consistently throughout the year, background check figures for firearm sales at retail have put 2022 on pace to be the third strongest year, behind only the outsized years witnessed in 2020 and 2021. August’s figures of 1,286,816 background checks was slightly ahead of July’s that came in at 1,233,115,” the NSSF statement continued.

“This also marks 37 months straight of background checks exceeding 1 million. Americans are choosing their gun rights by the millions each month while gun control politicians talk only of efforts to deprive them of their Constitutional rights. They are voting with their wallets. Politicians would be wise to heed to the will of Americans lawfully exercising their Constitutional rights and instead focus their efforts on locking up criminals that misuse firearms,” the NSSF said.

Guns Sales Keep Booming, Gun Companies on the Move

This year has also seen many firearms manufacturers pulling up stakes to move out of the “blue states” – especially those with strict gun control measures such as Massachusetts and Connecticut – to more pro-friendly “red states.”

Earlier this year, Smith & Wesson has moved its headquarters from Springfield, Mass. – once the center of “Gun Valley” since the American Revolution – to Tennessee, while at least 20 other firearms, ammunition, and gun accessory companies have also made similar moves. Beretta USA has actually led the efforts, as it moved its production to Tennessee in 2014, relocating some 200 jobs from Maryland.

In addition, just last year, Oklahoma lawmakers even launched a study to determine how to attract gun makers best, while governors from six states attended this year’s SHOT Show (Shooting, Hunting, Outdoor Trade Show), the industry’s annual trade event held each January in Las Vegas. The six governors made the trek to promote their states to the industry.

“These states are openly attracting the industry. Some of them have been very aggressive,” Mark Oliva, spokesman for the NSSF, told The Washington Post.

Though President Biden and some lawmakers may still believe that Americans are clamoring for “gun control,” the sales data tells another tale.

FBI: No end to soaring gun sales

President Joe Biden’s anti-gun crusade, echoed in major cities where liberal majors are blaming guns for the rise in young gangbanger killings, is having no impact on the uninterrupted three-year surge in firearm sales.

The FBI reported this week that sales have been over 1 million for 37 straight months, historic numbers.

Gun background checks for August were the third-highest on record for the month, 2,518,137. When adjusted for sales versus security and other checks, sales were likely 1,286,816, according to the National Shooting Sports Foundation, an industry trade group.

“August’s figures show there is a clear and steady desire by the American public for lawful firearm ownership,” said the group.

“Consistently throughout the year, background check figures for firearm sales at retail have put 2022 on pace to be the third strongest year, behind only the outsized years witnessed in 2020 and 2021. August’s figures of 1,286,816 background checks was slightly ahead of July’s that came in at 1,233,115. This also marks 37 months straight of background checks exceeding 1 million. Americans are choosing their gun rights by the millions each month while gun control politicians talk only of efforts to deprive them of their Constitutional rights. They are voting with their wallets. Politicians would be wise to heed to the will of Americans lawfully exercising their Constitutional rights and instead focus their efforts on locking up criminals that misuse firearms,” the NSSF said.

Henry Repeating Arms Raises $36K In Memory of Childhood Cancer Victim

Leading lever-action firearm manufacturer Henry Repeating Arms raised $36,400 for the family of Danica Brianne Mulholland through its latest “Guns For Great Causes” campaign. After losing their 12-year-old daughter to a three-year battle with brain cancer, the Levittown, PA, family is receiving a check from the sale of 50 Henry Golden Boy lever-action rifles to assist with any outstanding medical and funeral expenses.

Danica Brianne Mulholland

Danica was undergoing treatment for a grade IV medulloblastoma when Henry Repeating Arms CEO and Founder Anthony Imperato jumped at the opportunity to assist the family through the company’s charitable branch, Guns for Great Causes. Henry Repeating Arms donated all the rifles, and Baron Engraving of Trumbull, Conn., donated its services to create the engraved artwork in tribute to Danica’s life. The “Danica Strong” edition rifles sold out within two hours of the initial release announcement, and auctions of the first and last serial numbers brought in an additional $4,000. Since 2020, the program has distributed more than $325,000 to individual families of sick children.

“Danica’s memory will live on in all of us at Henry,” said Anthony Imperato. “Her tenacity, grace, and unending kindness for those around her is something everyone can learn from and keep with them. My sincerest thanks to all who choose to support our Guns for Great Causes mission.”

On top of these individual campaigns for sick children, and in celebration of its 25th anniversary this year, Henry Repeating Arms is highlighting its charitable endeavors with a $1 million pledge to benefit several different categories from children’s hospitals, organizations supporting military veterans, first responders, law enforcement, wildlife conservation, and hunting and shooting sports education. Some of the most recent beneficiaries of the effort include the Veterans of Foreign Wars and the Tunnel to Towers Foundation.

10 Facts Electric Vehicle Advocates Don’t Want You to Know

There are a host of reasons why the Left is absolutely determined to force Americans out of their privately owned, gasoline-powered cars and trucks and into unreliable public transportation and costly Electric Vehicles (EVs), none of which have to do with “saving the environment.”

The central reason the Left loves EVs is that the process of forcing Americans to convert to electric-powered transportation will destroy forever the incredible freedom and prosperity associated with privately owned gas-powered vehicles. The future will instead be centrally controlled by rich elitists and their corrupt politicians, power-hungry bureaucrats, and ideologically driven “experts.”

When Ransom Olds in 1901 and Henry Ford in 1908 sold America’s first mass-produced automobiles (the Curved Dash Olds and the Model T, respectively), they launched America toward becoming the world’s first open road society.

It took a couple of decades, but by the 1930s car ownership was virtually a middle-class staple and that meant, for millions of Americans, the freedom to go wherever they wanted to go when they chose to do so, without getting prior permission from government.

It is no exaggeration to say one of the chief factors in America growing out of the Depression was the ability of millions of Americans to buy new and used cars and trucks. The St. Louis Federal Reserve put it this way in September 1935 in the middle of the Great Depression:

“During the first 6 months of 1935, companies and individuals purchased from motor-vehicle dealers 1,461,940 new passenger cars and 254,063 trucks, paying for these vehicles a sum estimated at approximately $1,460,000,000. The first half year registrations were 44 percent greater in 1935 than during the corresponding period of last year, while the increase over the same 6 months of 1933 was 121 percent.”

The rise of the privately owned, gas-powered automobile also generated booming industries that to this day provide millions of good jobs, financial stability, and personal income growth that are foundational to the American economy.

Just think of all the dealerships, repair shops, parts stores, road construction, energy production, distribution and retailing, insurance, and law enforcement jobs that exist because there are hundreds of millions of cars and trucks in this country.

But those good things will be lost if California’s plan to ban the sale of all gas-powered vehicles by 2035 becomes national policy. There is so much that is so incredibly wrong-headed, if not either outright dishonest or stupid, with the drive to force Americans into EVs.

For example, as the experts at powerthefuture.com point out, here are 10 facts about EVs the Left doesn’t want Americans to know:

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