Jayden Baez, 20, was killed in the April 2022 incident
KISSIMMEE, Fla. – Attorneys for three men involved in a deadly incident with Osceola County deputies last year have filed a lawsuit against Target, where the shooting took place.
Jayden Baez, 20, was killed and two others were hurt in the April 2022 shooting, which stemmed from the theft of Pokémon cards and a pizza from the Target on West Irlo Bronson Memorial Highway and the ramming of a sheriff’s cruiser, according to investigators.
The lawsuit claims Target is partially responsible because the company allowed deputies to use the parking lot for training, which was taking place at the time of the shooting.
Attorneys say that since the public was not informed of the training, their clients ended up being “test subjects” for the exercise.
The lawsuit seeks compensation for medical bills, mental anguish and more.
Target has not commented on the suit (read below).
23-26-57-643 by Daniel R. Dahm on Scribd
An open letter to the gun community from HK’s marketing department: In a world of compromises, some people put the bullets in the magazine backwards…But it doesn’t matter, because our gun is on the cover of the Rainbow Six video games. Look how cool that SEAL coming out of the water looks… If you buy a $2,000 SOCOM, you will be that cool of an operator too. And chicks will dig you.
At HK, we stuck a piston on an AR15, just like a bunch of other companies have done, dating back to about 1969. However ours is better, because we refuse to sell it to civilians. Because you suck, and we hate you.
Our XM8 is the greatest rifle ever developed. It may melt, and it doesn’t fit any accessories known to man, but that is your fault. If you were a real operator, you would love it. Once again, look at Rainbow Six, that G36 sure is cool isn’t it? Yeah, you know you want one.
And by the way, check out our new HK45. We decided that humans don’t need to release the magazine with their thumbs. If you were a really manly teutonic operator, you would be able to reach the controls. Plus we’ve fired 100,000,000 rounds through one with zero malfunctions, and that was while it was buried in a lake of molten lava, on the moon. If you don’t believe us, it is because you aren’t a real operator.
By the way, our cheap, mass-produced, stamped sheet metal guns like the G3 and MP5 are the bestest things ever, and totally worth asinine scalpers prices, but note that cheap, mass-produced, stamped sheet metal guns from other countries are commie garbage. Not that it matters, because you’re civilians, so we won’t sell them to you anyway. Because you suck, and we hate you, but we know you’ll be back. We can beat you down like a trailer park wife, but you’ll come back, you always do.
Buy our stuff.
Sincerely
HK Marketing DepartmentHK. Because you suck. And we hate you.
I don’t know if you can tell, but I’m not the biggest fan of H und K. I posted that letter on THR a long time ago as a joke, but it sure did manage to tick a lot of people off. Ironically, the tag line, HK. Because you suck. And we hate you, has been popping up in various places ever since.
Sure, they’re decently reliable, decently accurate guns, but they’re massively overpriced and overrated by legions of fan boys. One of the most frustrating things about dealing with gun people on the interweb is that folks tend to pick a brand, and then base some of their self-esteem on that brand.
Kind of like rabid sports fans who feel the need to burn cars if their team wins, or loses, or they just felt like burning stuff. Say something negative about that team to one of those rabid fans, and you’re probably going to get beat up. Likewise, if you say anything negative about the Teutonic superiority of HK, people get mad at you.
Well, I love hate mail, so here goes.
For each of their wunder guns, you can get something else that costs a lot less, and works better, and has ergonomics designed by people that actually shoot. HK came about when some Nazis fled to Spain and built the Cetme.
But Cetme doesn’t sound very tough, does it? So they went back to Germany and became H and K, and if you call it H and K, fan boys will get mad, and insist that it is HK, because manly Teutonic operators and Navy SEALs don’t have time to say the word And. So HK rose to prominence by building the G3, which is what the Germans call the Cetme.
Now the G3 is a decent rifle. It is a cheap, stamped sheet metal, battle rifle. It has terrible ergonomics, with a hard to use safety, (and this is coming from a guy with gorilla hands), and difficult to use charging handle. It is reliable, because of the roller locking bolt that destroys your brass, and recoils worse than other competing .308 rifles. The FAL smokes the G3, and the only reason the G3 exists is because the Germans were too proud to pay royalties to those uppity Belgians.
The G3 can be really accurate, if you weld a bunch of metal to the sides of it, stick on a nice barrel, and jack the price up $10,000. And no, that’s not a typo. The PSG1 is absurdly priced, and the cheaper version, the MSG90 is proof that if make anything absurdly heavy enough, it can be accurate.
There is a collapsible stock available, which is awesome, if you like getting hit in the face with a piece of rebar, which is what their $400 stock feels like when you shoot it. Germans must be tougher than we are or something.
Other stamped, sheet metal guns exist, but HK fan boys mock those as commie garbage. See, if you build a cheap gun, but it is from Germany, then it is superior, but if you build a stamped gun in the eastern block (a hundred miles from Germany) then it is commie garbage.
But what brought HK to international fame and the cover of Dick Marcinko books (for example, Rogue Force Delta Green Team 7 Ninja Force Alpha II: The beginning) was the G3s little brother, the MP5. Take a G3, shrink it, and chamber it in 9mm. At the time, CQB doctrine was to use 9mm subguns. Now the MP5 is a neat little gun. I have two. They work well, and if compared to the other subguns of the day, like the Uzi or the Mac, then the MP5 was a lot easier to use, easier to hit with, and was decently reliable.
The MP5 became famous when the SAS used them to kick the living hell out of some bad guys at the Iranian embassy. This was marketing gold, and HK rode the wave. Pretty soon everybody wanted an MP5. It was what all the cool kids were using. Soon every video game and action movie was filled with HK stuff. HK may have overrated guns, but they’ve got the best marketing department in the gun business, and they milked that fee cow until it was dry.
But the MP5 isn’t as great as people make them out to be. They still malfunction. (if you’re favorite gun hasn’t malfed, you haven’t shot it enough). The mags are hard to insert on a closed bolt. Safety still sucks. Most versions don’t have a bolt hold open. Honestly, if I had to get into a gunfight with a subgun, then I would rather have my PPsH.
HK long guns were mostly unobtainable to US civilians, primarily because HK hates the civilian market. If you don’t believe me, go talk to them at SHOT show, and watch them sneer at regular people. They can’t help themselves. But like all unobtainable things, like Ferraris, and super models, regular folks start to imagine these unobtainable things as perfection, when really they’re just an expensive car that spends most of its time in the shop, or a chick with mental problems and Bulimia. That’s what happened with HK. Their products took on this aura of coolness amongst the fans, that just isn’t real.
For example, go to any thread on the internet where somebody brings up “What is the Best Rifle EVAR!” and there is a poll. On the poll will be some HK long guns that 99.85% of the gun owning public has never seen, let alone shot, but those guns will have the most votes, because the HK marketing department told you how awesome they are.
Read up about the XM8 on most gun boards. According to the interweb, the XM8 is the finest combat implement of all time. In actuality it is a plastic AR18, that tends to melt, break, and is universally loathed by the Army staff that had to test it. It takes bizarre attachments, so no US accessories will work. They took the G36, which is basically a blah rifle, used by a handful of countries that don’t ever actually shoot people, and uglied it up so that it looks like the demented lovechild of Bloaty the Pizza Hog and a Super-Soaker.
Or the HK416. According to the internet, the HK416 is the best gun EVER! It is called THE AWESOME. Lightning bolts of coolness fly from the gun and smite your enemies with Teutonic fury! However you can’t have one, because you’re a civilian, ergo, you suck. And HK hates you.
The 416 is basically an AR with a gas piston, which has been done by like ten companies now, but somehow the HK is better, because it was on Future Weapons, and HK won’t sell it to civilians. In fact, a couple of 416s slipped out into civilian hands, and HK freaked out about it. There is no legal reason that 416 uppers can’t be sold, but HK despises regular people, and the idea of you having their long guns offends them.
You can get civilian HK long guns, once in a while, when HK feels like it, but they’re usually hyper-neutered and over priced. Hell, the last ones were actually grey, because you know, black is too dangerous, or something.
HK’s new subgun is the UMP. They tend to break. One of our local PDs traded all of theirs in after they broke all the stocks. Cool idea, because everybody loves .45, but bad execution.
HK’s flagship pistols, the USP line, are decent polymer handguns. They are extremely reliable, that is the plus side. On the down side, their triggers universally suck, but they don’t have to. HK likes to use a square peg in a round hole, (literally) that makes the trigger pull a lot heavier and grittier than it needs to be. Why? Beats the heck out of me. The USP series should be reliable, they’re enormous.
The most annoying thing about the HK pistols is how they cost almost twice as much as every other polymer handgun on the market. Somehow being made in Germany means the USP series is worth $800-$1000, when all of the polymer guns made within a thousand miles are $400-$600. Only most of those guns tend to have better triggers, are just as reliable, and are usually more accurate.
Then there is the Mk23. Which is huge, accurate, reliable, (which it damn well better be, since it is the size and weight of a Mini-14) costs as much as a used car, huge, and is universally despised by the SF that it is issued to. Talk to anyone that is in an SF unit. The Mk23s they’ve been issued sit unused in arms room. Did I mention that it is HUGE? But that’s okay, because the HK fan boys will explain that it is an OFFENSIVE handgun. (scratches head) whatever the hell that is supposed to mean.
They are reliable, but so is a $125 Makarov. Only the Mak has a better trigger.
I have two guys that I work with that have been to the HK armorer’s school. If you think I’m biased, you should talk to them. They especially love working with the Germans. One fellow was yelled at because he had two magazines clamped together on his MP5, because “NEIN! That is not the H und K way!” Even though he had bought the mag clamp from HK. When you ask why the original MP5 doesn’t have a last shot bolt hold open, they’ll yell at you and say, “NEIN! Why would you want your enemy to know your gun is empty!” Hell, Hans, I just want to know when my gun is empty!
One friend of mine took his personal MP5, and cut an extra notch into the collapsible stock, so it would be shorter for when he was wearing his armor, and also it removed the nasty wobble that all HK collapsible stocks have. It is an easy fix, and a no-brainer that the HK should have been doing for years. Fritz at the armorer’s school damn near had an aneurism when he saw this blasphemy against his ineffectual German gods.
Look, gun owning public, just because you saw it on Future Weapons, or read about it on the internet, doesn’t make it true. For the love of John Moses Browning, before you formulate super strong opinions about a weapon, you should have at least shot the damn thing first.
Do I have anything positive to say about HK? Yes, the sneer of disdain they give you at SHOT is priceless and entertaining.
Edit: My book, Monster Hunter International, is available now on Amazon. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0741444569/ref=s9_asin_title_wishf_r4-f9_p_c_f_p-2785_g1?ie=UTF8&coliid=I1EXBBDFCRIV04&colid=3QAUVGDWI48Y7&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=right-4&pf_rd_r=0YJY8KAT16R6R571HXSP&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=362209101&pf_rd_i=507846
Categories
How Much Ammo? Published by Divemedic
Once you pick your flavor of ammo as we did earlier this week, how much of it should we have on hand? Some people say that the most handgun ammunition that you need on hand is 250 or 500 rounds. That’s ridiculous. I have more than that in any given caliber.
For starters, there are two types of ammo: range ammo and war shots. PewPew Tactical recommends 500 rounds as a starting point, with 150 of those rounds being war shots. I still think that’s low. So what do I consider to be a good amount of ammo?
For range ammo, I buy in bulk because it’s cheaper, meaning in 1,000 round cases. If I find a good deal, I snap it up. That’s how I scored 9mm FMJ for 15 cents a round back in January of 2020, when I got 2,000 rounds for $300. Of course, that was pre-COVID. Good luck getting 9mm at that price now.
For starters, .22lr comes in bricks of 500 rounds. I own a few .22 firearms, both pistols and rifles. You will seldom see me with less than a couple of thousand rounds of .22 lying about. Of course, there is really no such thing as a “war shot” with .22lr. A brick of .22 will cost you about $30 at today’s prices, making it the cheapest way to shoot. It’s also great for squirrels and rats. That’s why I keep a bunch on hand.
When it comes to range ammo, I try to stock a minimum of 500 rounds per caliber. For the high use calibers of 9mm and .45, I find that 1,000 rounds on hand is a minimum.
For defensive handguns, we need to consider war shots. For semi-autos, I try to keep a minimum of 500 war shots per handgun. For revolvers, 150 war shots per handgun. So if I have a pair of 9mm handguns, that’s 1,000 rounds.
When we get into 5.56mm and 7.62x51mm, we get into a whole different ballgame. For the AR, all I stock in 5.56mm is Green Tips. I don’t do different war shots and range ammo, because I want my war shots to perform identically to my range ammo. For that reason, I try to keep a minimum of 5,000 rounds on hand of 5.56mm.
Likewise for the 7.62x51mm, but my round count there is lower simply because it is more expensive and takes up more room. So I want my minimum there to be no less than 2,500 rounds. With the 7.62, I look for nothing but the 147 grain. That way, every round is similar in performance to every other round.
For shotguns, all I have are 12 gauges. I stock 250 defense rounds in buckshot and slug, and 250 rounds of #7 shot (for hunting).
Toss in a few smoke grenades and a couple of pepper grenades, and the fire marshal’s office will shit themselves if they ever find out about that stash.
So as you can see, that means a lot of ammo on hand. We are talking about more than 20,000 rounds of ammo. I didn’t get there by buying it all at once. I just buy ammo on a regular schedule, buy a case at a time when I do buy, and try to get more than I shoot. Eventually, you get a decent stockpile.
Amid growing concerns of security risks to members of Congress, more than 50 senators have been issued satellite phones for emergency communication, people familiar with the measures told CBS News. The devices are part of a series of new security measures being offered to senators by the Senate Sergeant at Arms, who took over shortly after the assault on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
The satellite phone technology has been offered to all 100 senators. CBS News has learned at least 50 have accepted the phones, which Senate administrative staff recommend senators keep in close proximity during their travels.
In testimony before the Senate Appropriations Committee last month, Senate Sergeant at Arms Karen Gibson said satellite communication is being deployed “to ensure a redundant and secure means of communication during a disruptive event.”
Gibson said the phones are a security backstop in the case of an emergency that “takes out communications” in part of America. Federal funding will pay for the satellite airtime needed to utilize the phone devices.
A Department of Homeland Security advisory said satellite phones are a tool for responding to and coordinating government services in the case of a “man-made” or natural disaster that wipes out communication.
Gibson has also opened an office “demonstration space” in the basement of the Russell Senate Office Building to offer senators and staff an exhibition of new home state office security upgrades. The demonstration room offers exhibitions of “duress buttons,” mail screening devices and safety glass to reduce the risk of attacks.
In her testimony before the Senate panel in April, Gibson reported, “Our team provided initial physical security enhancements for 31 offices and improved existing security for 52 others in 2022. Maintaining security systems in good working order is a priority, and to support this effort our team conducted over 622 service calls to maintain, repair, and or test and inspect state office physical security systems in 2022.”
Senate administrators have also offered “stop the bleed” training to better equip staffers to respond to medical emergencies and victims of attacks.
In April, the House Sergeant at Arms William McFarland told legislators there is “robust participation” in a program to help House members secure their home residences. McFarland said that House administrators are coordinating with local police departments to help protect members of Congress who hold events in their home states and to help better secure the homes of members.
A spending bill passed in late 2022 provided additional funds for hometown security measures for Congress. The legislation required security administrators to “enhance member protection including providing a security program for Congressional Leadership, expanding Dignitary Protection Division services and expanding USCP field office presence,” which would deploy and broaden Capitol Police protection in cities outside of Washington.
Though the U.S. Capitol complex is shielded by a force of nearly 2,000 Capitol police employees, there have been growing concerns about hometown security for members of Congress. A California man was charged in a 2022 attack at the San Francisco home of then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. The assailant was allegedly targeting Nancy Pelosi when he confronted and attacked Pelosi’s husband Paul with a hammer.
In a May 15 attack at the Fairfax, Virginia, office of Rep. Gerry Connolly, one of Connolly’s constituents is accused of attacking two of the congressman’s staffers with a metal baseball bat. Both were briefly hospitalized and are recovering.
Freedom Munitions continues to expand its X-DEF defense line with the addition of the .38 Special caliber.
Like all X-DEF products, Freedom’s X-DEF .38 Special hollow point ammunition has been designed from the ground up by Freedom Munitions with optimum penetration and weight retention in mind.
X-DEF ammunition is intended for personal protection. The cartridges utilize a brass case with X-Treme Bullets’ copper plated, 158-grain X-DEF hollow point expanding bullet and are loaded with premium, low-flash powder.
Tested in Freedom Munitions’ own underground ballistics lab, the 158-grain projectile travels at a velocity of 925 fps with a 6” barrel and penetrates 13”-15” in clear ballistic gelatin.
Earlier in 2023, Freedom Munitions also released .357 Mag X-DEF in two weights and a 200-grain 10MM X-DEF round.
X-DEF .38 Special is available now in 50 count at FreedomMunitions.com.