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The judge’s order in New Jersey suspends, for now, impending requirements that gun carriers purchase liability insurance — a requirement that would have been the first statewide mandate of its kind.
U.S.A. – New York Attorney General Letitia James has taken legal action against Mean Arms, a Georgia-based gun accessory manufacturer, for their alleged involvement in the illegal possession of assault weapons in New York. The lawsuit follows the tragic incident in Buffalo, where a shooter used Mean Arms’ magazine lock, known as the MA Lock, to replace magazines in his AR-15 and carried out a mass shooting that claimed the lives of 10 individuals.
According to the lawsuit, Mean Arms deceptively promotes the MA Lock as a device that makes weapons compliant with New York’s gun laws. However, it is alleged that the lock can be effortlessly removed, allowing the shooter to add 30-round detachable magazines to the firearm used in the massacre. The Attorney General argues that Mean Arms’ marketing practices and instructions on how to remove the lock contribute to the illegal possession of assault weapons in the state.
Attorney General James danced in the blood of the Buffalo shooting, calling it “one of the darkest days in the history of New York and the nation.” While dramatically claiming that the harm caused cannot be undone, and she aims to seek “justice” for the lives lost by the acts of a madman by now pursuing legal action against Mean Arms.
The NY lawsuit seeks several “remedies”, including a halt to Mean Arms’ operations in New York, restitution, damages, and civil penalties for the company’s alleged violations of state laws. Moreover, the Attorney General intends to force Mean Arms to issue corrective statements regarding the misleading claims made about the MA Lock.
Mean Arms’ MA Lock is designed to lock a detachable magazine in place on a semiautomatic rifle using a shear bolt mechanism. However, the New York Attorney General’s office found that the company provides instructions on how to easily remove the lock on the packaging itself. Online videos also demonstrate the removal process, which involves using a #2 speed out drill bit and a power drill.
The lawsuit reveals that the Buffalo shooter had purchased a semiautomatic rifle with the MA Lock installed and a 10-round magazine in January 2022. Using the common tools and a power drill, he removed the lock, enabling him to attach multiple illegal, under New York law, 30-round detachable magazines. This modification allowed the shooter to continue firing 30 rounds without reloading, as would be the case with the NY arbitrary number of 10 rounds, and according to the AG, that somehow contributed to the increased “lethality” of the attack.
Attorney General James’ legal bullying of Mean Arms is part of her ongoing efforts to claim she is doing something to curb “gun violence” and to force “responsible gun safety laws” on New York. In recent months, her office has wasted taxpayer monies on a statewide gun buyback program and cracked down on online ammunition sellers for “illegal” shipping.
While the lawsuit claims to hold Mean Arms accountable, it is worth noting that laws like New York’s, banning so-called high-capacity magazines have faced legal challenges. Various federal courts, including the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, have ruled such bans to be unconstitutional, citing the Second Amendment right to bear arms.
The lawsuit against Mean Arms, however, underscores the Attorney General’s commitment to doing the dirty work of gun banners. The legal action has garnered support from advocacy groups like Everytown for Gun Safety, as well as local leaders, including U.S. Representative Brian Higgins and Buffalo Mayor Byron W. Brown.
By Fred Riehl and AI technology. Note: This article was generated using AI technology and may contain some automated content and analysis.
In a world of hyper-velocity cartridges, where shooting into the next zip code has almost become the norm, it can be refreshing to spend some time with one of the classic rimmed cartridges which our grandfathers used for varmints, predators and small-game species. In fact, the relatively mild report and virtual lack of recoil can be a wonderful diversion. The speedy .220 Swift was released in 1935 and the .222 Remington was released in 1950, the year my father was born, but among those earliest designs were the .22 Hornet and the .218 Bee.
I like rimmed cartridges, especially in lever guns and single shots, and the mild cartridges can be a pleasure to shoot. Just as it’s good fun to grab a good old .30-30 carbine instead of the .30-06 sometimes, time spent with a good rifle chambered for the Hornet or the Bee can be a great change of pace. In my grandfather’s era, the .22 Hornet was the go-to varmint cartridge, and the couple of seasons I spent behind the trigger of a .218 Bee were a whole lot of fun. Let’s compare and contrast the pair of old veterans, and see which comes out on top.
The .22 Hornet is the older of the pair, being released commercially in 1930. Those esteemed gentlemen at the Springfield Armory—including Col. Townsend Whelen and Capt. G.L. Wotkyns—were experimenting with the now obsolete .22 WCF cartridge, and arrived at what we know as the .22 Hornet. Though there had been another cartridge in the 1890s known as the Hornet, it was dimensionally different from the 1930 variant. It is a simple and diminutive cartridge, immediately evoking a bygone era. It has a rim diameter of 0.350 inches, a case length of 1.403 inches, and a slight 5-degree, 38-minute shoulder which culminates in neck measuring 0.386 inches, giving all the neck tension you’d want. The Hornet’s overall cartridge length is 1.723 inches.
Initial loads pushed a 45-grain jacketed bullet at a muzzle velocity of 2400 fps, and Winchester believed in the cartridge to the point where they offered it in the Model 54 bolt-action rifle and it was one of the original chamberings for the Model 70 in 1936. Modern powders have increased the muzzle velocity of the .22 Hornet, and many manufacturers have seen fit to use the lighter 30- and 35-grain bullets to boost velocities further. For furbearers and varmints inside of 200 to 250 yards, the .22 Hornet is a sound choice, as even the 45-grain “traditional” load—look to Hornady’s Custom line for the 45-grain Spire Point at 2665 fps—can be zeroed at 200 yards, striking 2.8 inches high at 100 yards. Lighter loads like Federal’s Varmint & Predator 35-grain Tipped Varmint load, at 3000 fps, can be zeroed at 200 yards, striking 3.1 inches high at 100, but will drop off quickly after 200 yards. Yet it remains a deadly little cartridge at woods distances.
The .218 Bee came along in 1937, at the height of the Great Depression, released in Winchester Model 65 lever gun. Designed to compete with the .22 Hornet, Winchester necked down the .25-20 Winchester to hold .224-inch-diameter bullets (the .25-20 itself was a .32-20 necked down), and the Model 65 was offered in .218 Bee, .25-20 and .32-20. The Bee is slightly shorter, but definitely fatter, than the Hornet. Its base measures 0.408 inches, has a body with minimal taper and a steeper 15-degree shoulder. The overall case length measures 1.345 inches and the Bee has a neck length of 0.258 inches, more than one caliber, for sufficient neck tension. The Bee also comes in slightly shorter than the Hornet, at 1.680 inches.
Because of the lever-action tubular magazine, the Bee was loaded from its inception with round nosed bullets. With a 45-grain bullet, the Bee will give another 100 fps over the Hornet, with factory loads driving a 45-grain to 2750 fps. There were some accuracy complaints early on with the .218 Bee, but it’s pretty much accepted that the issue was with the lever-action rifle more than the cartridge.
There are a good number of rifles chambered in each, with Ruger having adopted both. The Ruger 77/22 is a great bolt-action repeater with their proprietary rotary magazine, and the Ruger No. 1 has been chambered in both cartridges at one time or another.
Which of the two makes the better choice? Well, the performance of the two is pretty similar, with the Bee having the slight velocity advantage, but the Hornet has the advantage of more factory loads and more availability. At the time of this writing, there are two advertised factory loads for the Bee (Hornady and Winchester), while the Hornet has a dozen or more. The Bee’s factory ammo uses 45- and 46-grain bullets, while the Hornet offers a range of bullet choices from 35 to 50 grains.
I personally feel that the Bee is a better cartridge, firstly because of the velocity increase over the Hornet, secondly because I’ve found that brass for the Bee tends to be more consistent than that of the Hornet, and thirdly for the roomier case which gives a bit more flexibility for the handloader. But unless you intend to handload, the Hornet makes more sense, simply for the availability and range of factory loads. I am an unabashed handloader, and when I spent time with that Ruger No. 1 in .218 Bee, components were readily available, so feeding the single-shot was no issue.
Both cartridges are easy on the ears and have very little recoil, yet are effective for any of the smaller species for which these are suited. It seems that the industry has chosen the .22 Hornet, and with the modern factory loads you can probably do anything that you could do with the .218 Bee. I’d hate to see either fade away completely, but in this competition I’ll have to give the nod to the older .22 Hornet.
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A Beretta 686 Onyx in 12GA
Its a good thing that I never got into the world of scatterguns. Otherwise I would be one REALLY poor! Grumpy
A new “disinformation office” has been quietly established by the Biden administration. This office will have the authority to arrest and prosecute citizens of the United States who publish content online that is deemed to be “false” by so-called fact checkers.
According to the announcement made by Director Avril Haines on Thursday, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) has established a new office to oversee the efforts being made by the intelligence community to combat “disinformation” in the United States.
Haines made the announcement during a hearing with the Senate Armed Services Committee. The Foreign Malign Influence Center (FMIC) will be focused not only on “foreign malign influence” aimed at U.S. elections, but also on “public opinion within the United States.”
Haines declared, “Congress put into law that we should establish a foreign malign influence center in the intelligence community. We stood that up and it encompasses our election threat executive work essentially looking at foreign influence and interference in elections, and deals with disinformation more generally”.
Infowars.com reports: The center was created after approved funding by Congress in September 2022 but little was known about how it would operate.
From The Intercept:
From its perch atop the intelligence community, the FMIC has been designated the U.S. government’s primary authority for analyzing and integrating intelligence on foreign influence, according to a brief entry on ODNI’s website. The FMIC’s acting director, Jeffrey K. Wichman, is a former CIA executive who previously served as chief of analysis for the agency’s Counterintelligence Mission Center.
“Exposing deception in defense of liberty” is the center’s motto, ODNI’s website says. It enjoys access to “all intelligence possessed or created pertaining to FMI [foreign malign information], including election security.”
Haines said the FMIC would work with the State Department’s Global Engagement Center (GEC) to fulfill its mission, which the Twitter Files revealed works as a malicious censorship arm of the federal government.
“What we have been doing is effectively trying to support the Global Engagement Center and others throughout the U.S. government in helping them to understand what are the plans and intentions of the key actors in this space: China, Russia, Iran, etc.,” she said.
Specifically, the “GEC funded the Global Disinformation Index (GDI), a foreign data-driven advocacy organization, which ‘created blacklists of U.S. domestic media voices to cripple U.S. citizen journalists’ advertising revenue,’ according to House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul (TX), Foreign Affairs Oversight and Accountability Subcommittee Chair Brian Mast (FL), and GOP Reps. Chris Smith (FL), Darrell Issa (CA), Maria Salazar (FL), Keith Self (TX), Cory Mills (FL), and Ken Buck (CO),” Breitbart reported.
This comes ten months after the Department of Homeland Security scrapped its planned “Disinformation Governance Board” in the wake of massive public backlash.
This is just another attempt by the government to establish a Ministry of Truth that will be weaponized against, not “foreign adversaries,” but the American people.
Watch the Haines’ full testimony:
I guess Memphis, Tennessee city council members haven’t gotten any smarter since I left town. Not even smart enough to ask someone with a little knowledge firearms and law for some help.
The council is preparing a couple of gun control referendum questions. Since Tennessee is a firearms preemption state, that seems to be asking for trouble right off. But they acknowledge that, and said, What the hell; why not?
Memphis City Council to consider gun restrictions, but state law could preempt change
Memphis City Council members are poised to consider Tuesday approving two ballot referendums that would allow Memphians to vote on whether handguns should be banned in city limits without permits and whether the sale of assault rifles should be banned in the city.If approved by city council members and then the voters, those ordinances would directly contradict state law.
The proposed language of the referendum questions is interesting… in a morbidly amusing way.
“Shall the Charter of the City of Memphis be amended to read:
1. No person shall be allowed to carry a handgun in the City of Memphis without possessing a valid handgun carry permit.
2. No person shall be allowed to carry, store, or travel with a handgun in a vehicle in the City of Memphis without possessing a valid handgun permit.”
Aside from state preemption law, that runs afoul of federal law: 18 USC 926A. I suspect active enforcement of that one — what; checkpoints on I-40 and I-55? — would cost Memphis taxpayers quite a few million dollars in lawsuit settlements.
Next up, we have this gem.
“Shall the Charter of the City of Memphis be amended to read:
1. Hereafter, the Commercial Sale of Assault Rifles within the City of Memphis is unlawful and is hereby prohibited.
2. The provisions of this Chapter shall not apply to the Commercial Sale of Assault Rifles to:
-insert the usual law enforcement and military exceptions-
Huh. “Assault rifles;” not some vague, undefined “assault weapon.” I am pleased to see that question 2 leaves AR-pattern firearms (like the actual AR-15) alone. But given the restrictions of the National Firearms Act of 1934, I really don’t see much point in it. Lawful transfers of machine guns already require background checks, taxes, and long delays; whether a commercial sale or private. Oh, and a lot of money for the gun itself.
No, not too bright at all. But then, they do still have a Ford on the council. I think Edmund, Sr. is the one who called for blacks to rise up, riot, and destroy the city that one time.
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Retired Staff Sgt. Nicholas Maimer. (Facebook)
A retired Special Forces soldier died in Ukraine after an apparent building collapse amid a Russian artillery barrage in the embattled city of Bakhmut, according to U.S. officials, claims from a Russian paramilitary leader, and media reports.
Nicholas Maimer, who retired from the National Guard as a staff sergeant, was working with a non-profit group seeking to aid civilians and train Ukrainian troops, CNN cited fellow Americans working in Ukraine as saying.
A spokesperson for the Idaho National Guard, from which Maimer retired on Dec. 24, 2018, with an honorable discharge, expressed condolences to the veteran’s family.
“Our hearts and prayers are with the family of Nicholas Maimer, along with his friends in the community,” said Lt. Col Christopher Borders in a phone interview.
Borders said that Maimer’s military career took him from the active duty Army to the Idaho Army National Guard, with intervening stints in the Utah and California Guard as well. Maimer, who earned his Special Forces tab while with a Utah unit in 2005, was qualified as a Special Forces engineer sergeant, an infantryman, a cavalry scout and a tank crewman.
The leader of the Wagner Group private military corporation, Yevgeny Prigozhin, appeared in a Tuesday video posted to Telegram that displayed a body and U.S. documents that appeared to belong to Maimer. The Russian oligarch claimed Maimer had been directly fighting against his troops, who have borne the brunt of Russia’s bloody drive to capture the city in eastern Ukraine, and deserved “respect because he did not die in his bed as a grandpa but he died at war,” according to a CNN translation.
Military Times could not independently verify the video’s authenticity, but Maimer’s uncle told the Idaho Statesman that the body in the video was that of his nephew.
A State Department spokesperson, speaking anonymously to discuss an American citizen’s reported death, told Military Times that officials are aware of the reports of the death of a U.S. citizen in Bakhmut and are seeking additional information. The spokesperson cautioned that their ability to verify death reports is “extremely limited” and reiterated that U.S. citizens should not travel to Ukraine due to the active armed conflict.
It’s not clear whether Maimer had experienced combat before he went to Ukraine.
Borders, the Idaho Guard spokesperson, provided a list of Maimer’s awards and decorations that did not include any specific War on Terror expeditionary ribbons or combat badges. But Borders noted the difficulty of compiling Guard troops’ service records, particularly for soldiers like Maimer who transferred multiple times between states.
The spokesperson said Maimer deployed to the Philippines as a Utah National Guard Special Forces sergeant from September 2006 until May 2007, though it’s not clear what duties he or his unit held.
According to archived press releases, the Utah Guard-led 1st Battalion, 19th Special Forces Group completed a nine-month rotation with the Joint Special Operations Task Force-Philippines during that time. Troops assigned to that task force, which operated under the Operation Enduring Freedom-Philippines banner, were not authorized to participate in combat save for self-defense scenarios, according to a 2016 RAND report.
Troops who participated in that mission were authorized the Global War on Terrorism Expeditionary Medal, but Maimer’s seemingly-incomplete records do not include one. Other service awards did not include devices to which Maimer should have been entitled.
Maimer received at least one Army Commendation Medal and five Army Achievement Medals during his 20-year career, Borders said.
Davis Winkie is a senior reporter covering the Army. He focuses on investigations, personnel concerns and military justice. Davis, also a Guard veteran, was a finalist in the 2023 Livingston Awards for his work with The Texas Tribune investigating the National Guard’s border missions. He studied history at Vanderbilt and UNC-Chapel Hill.