Paul Simer is a young, married geek in West TN. A committed Christian, he is the most well-armed church secretary in the state.
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I drive by this place about 12 times a week, and at least a couple times a week after dark.
Those lights were not there two days ago. The entire shopping center is decked out in them.
It’s not even October.
(I went to OfficeMax to get a chair mat for my desk. I came back with a chairmat and a chair. Stupid salespeople and their stupid cheerful helpfulness.)
This afternoon on my way home from work I stopped by a local sporting goods store to see if they had received their broken Kahr PM9 back from the service department yet. They had not, but I spotted something under the counter that had not been there before: a completed DPMS AR-15 lower at a price low enough to make me wonder if I wanted to assemble my own after all. While I was looking at it, the salesman asked me what kind of AR I was looking to build:
Paul: Well, I’ll probably go with a light-weight, no-frills carbine. It’s my first, so I want to save money where I can and get a short, handy first rifle.
Salesman: And that lower would be great for that. In fact, you could get a 10.5″ upper online if you’re willing to risk it.
Paul: And become a felon, sure.
Now folks, I don’t like the NFA any more than the next guy. The $200 tax stamp required for SBRs, the paperwork, and the wait are annoying, but not nearly as annoying as skipping them, getting caught, and having “FELON” stamped onto your background checks for the rest of your days. Not to mention the whole going to jail and losing the right to vote and own firearms. As I’ve stated before, I don’t consider legality and morality to be intrinsically linked, but let’s not be stupid here: $200, though unjust, is not the end of the world. I know folks with SBRs, and aside from the wait the process was no big deal. It’s a violation of my rights, but not enough of a violation to justify an action that could take me away from my family for a few years, and away from productive employment for a lifetime. All that is an especially bad idea for a “feature” on an AR that sacrifices a large portion of its utility.
As I was processing this, I overheard the following exchange:
Customer: Man, that EOTech sight sighted in like nothin! I got it off eBay for $400, and you can’t beat that!
Salesman: Yeah, I like them a lot. I’ve got one on my rifle at home.
(It should be noted that earlier, when I asked if they had any fixed or folding AR sights, he tried to sell me a $30 red dot.)
Customer: They say that mine can be used with night vision gear. I can’t afford it, but it sure looks nice.
Salesman: Yeah, and you don’t see much of it. Most of the newer night vision stuff you see at shows are from the military. Soldiers just write ‘em off as losses and take ‘em home to sell. Hell, I’m going off to war myself soon, and I’m planning to stick a few in my bag when I come back.
First off, I must point out that Gen III NVDs are available to anyone, though it’s worth noting that there are export restrictions. Pricey, yes, but perfectly legal.
Making a personal decision to break what most consider to be an unjust law (unregistered SBR) is one thing. Advocating noncompliance with such laws from a storefront is stupid, but I’m not going to judge. Announcing that one is planning to steal from the US Government for personal gain, though? I mean, he knows everyone in that room pays for that stuff, right? Do people have no shame?
I’m just about sure that a complaint letter to the owner is in order. What do you guys think? How would you approach this? This guy is giving firearm retailers and gun-owners everywhere a bad name, but it’s possible that he’s not the only one and that such a letter would be ignored.
In any case, I won’t be purchasing that Kahr, or anything else, from that establishment unless they kick the guy to the curb.
Is Saturday in Bartlett, coordinated by Squeeky!
Don’t forget, if you’re in the Memphis area (and we even have folks coming from Jackson!), and you’d like to hang with us, you’re more than welcome.
What: Blogger Meetup
When: 2pm, Saturday, July 19th
Where: East End Grill, Bartlett Location on HWY 64
Confirmed Attendees:
Several of us are going to Range USA afterward to participate in shooty goodness. If you don’t want to come to the range afterward, or can’t, you obviously don’t have to. But I’d love it if we could get some more people to come to the lunch and socialize.
You don’t have to be a gun blogger, and I swear we’re all nice people, so if “meeting strangers” squicks you out, then you can’t pick a better group to overcome that fear with. In fact, I’ll be meeting several of these folks for the first time - and that’s the point: to connect with other Memphis area bloggers.
Hope to see you there!
(Next time, you folks have to come to Jackson. Free range time at the FOP range!)
Tracie is going along as my staff photographer. It should be a great time!
A gentle reminder to readers that the postage rate has increased, effective today.
New Letter Rate: 42 cents
New Postcard Rate: 27 cents
Boy, it sure is a good thing that the post office doesn’t operate under a statutory monopoly or anything. It would sure stink if, for instance, they’d mandated that nobody can put anything into a box you place on your property except for a single organization. Man, it’d be REALLY odious if nobody could do urgent letter delivery without being required, by law, to charge at least twice as much as the federal monopoly. Good thing we live in a free capitalistic society!
The increase doesn’t affect most of us personally to any great degree. I pay only one bill every month by mail, the rest of them having long since allowed online payment. Where it stinks is at my job with the church, where besides the occasional congregation-wide letter, we send probably 20 to 30 envelope’s worth of routine correspondence every week. Most of these are bills that could not be easily tracked if not done as a formal paper check.
Postal service here in Jackson is a joke, too. Letters from one part of town to another may only take one day, or may take five. Checks that the church mails to vendors routinely take a week to arrive, with 20+ day deliveries not uncommon. More than a few times I have driven by a blue mail drop to find it packed to overflowing and driven back the next morning, to find it still absolutely full. I’m convinced that I have witnessed a mailbox go unemptied for three days. Church policy prohibits me from dropping mail (which is often financially sensitive) in the on-property mailbox, so I get to either deal with unreliable mail drop boxes, or make my way over to the post office every day.
Interesting fact: The USA is the only country on the face of the planet which enforces a monopoly on letter delivery at gunpoint.
http://jacksonsun.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080312/NEWS01/803120318
Ken Rhodes, a Jackson-based drug division TBI agent, walked into the ice cream store Tuesday afternoon right after two robbers entered the store demanding money.
One robber had a pistol and went behind the counter, taking money from the store and from an employee. The other acted as a lookout, according to a release from the Jackson Police Department.
Authorities said the lookout fled when Rhodes entered the store, but the gunman ran towards the back of the store.”Employees told the agent they were robbed and that the suspect who ran toward the back could not get out,” the release said. ”The agent positioned himself between the personnel and the back of the store challenging the suspect.”
After getting no response, Rhodes chased after the robber and called Jackson police for backup, according to Roger Hughes, TBI special agent in charge of the drug investigation division.
“No shots were fired and no one was injured,” Hughes said. “We’re very proud of Ken and we’re very happy no one was hurt.”
The robbers fled on foot west of the store, located at 2089 N. Highland, with an undetermined amount of money, according to Jackson police Investigator Tyreece Miller.
This is the first time the Baskin Robbins on Highland has been robbed, store officials said Tuesday.
Jackson police received the call about the Baskin Robbins robbery at 3:41 p.m. Tuesday.
Police had responded 16 minutes earlier to a robbery at the Colonial Bakery store at 615 South Royal Street.
“At this time, I don’t think they’re related, but we’re still investigating,” Miller said Tuesday night.
A sign at the Colonial store hanging in the window read, “Closed 4 Rest of the Day” after the robbery Tuesday. Store officials declined to comment. Jackson police said they received the call about the Colonial store robbery at about 3:25 p.m. Tuesday.
The robbers were armed with pistols, said Lt. Sammy Britt. They fled on foot.
You folks who only carry your handguns “at night and in bad areas” should take note of armed robberies at an ice cream shop and a bread store at 3:30 in the afternoon.
You folks who mock those who choose to carry an extra magazine as “rambos” should take note of the multiple bad guys.
I’m also curious about how a TBI agent can go from positioned between the suspect and the only exit to chasing him down the street with no explanation given. Either the paper got the details of the event wrong or there’s an agent out there with some ’splaining to do.
Seen on my way out of a local stop-n-rob:
“Oh, man! What are we gonna do now? Maybe we should go down the street where we’re allowed to wear our masks so we can rob them without getting caught!”
Also note: this was on my way out of the store. The sign was not double-sided. I suppose it was supposed to make the employees feel better? Or, considering the advertisement above it, also not double-sided, maybe someone hung the door backwards? Oh yeah, that’s got to be it.
Got a phone call from my wife at the newspaper letting me know that they’re getting reports of an explosion at the Milan Army Ammunition Plant. There was an explosion at one of the storage bunkers a few years ago that killed two employees, but what I always feared was an accident on one of the production lines, which could claim up to 50. No word yet on local news channels about the explosion, but I’m sure that right now American Ordnance is focused solely on containment and headcounts, not talking to the press.
I did an IT internship with American Ordnance there last year, and was impressed by their professionalism and obsession with safety. It was hands-down the best working environment I have ever participated in, and all of my co-workers are in my thoughts today.
More later when there are details.
Updated at 11:00 AM: I’m told it was a fire at one of the bunkers, and there are no injuries. They’re going to let it burn out before they attempt to approach it. That would be fun to watch, maybe from about 1000 yards.
Jackson, Tennessee has been ranked 9th most dangerous metropolitan area in the nation by Morgan Quintino Press. The Jackson Sun wrote a feel-good piece about it not being as bad as Quintino suggests:
Jackson City Councilman Johnny Dodd on Tuesday said he doesn’t dispute that Jackson has a crime problem, but he questions the accuracy of the crime ranking for Jackson.
“You can’t just base it on the size of our city. That’s not fair,” Dodd said. “Crime varies depending on the seasons, the economy and the surrounding areas we have.
“You’ve got people that come here (to Jackson) and commit crimes and get back on the highway,” he said. “That makes our numbers go up. The last murder (on Roland Avenue), where was he from? Memphis. I think Jackson’s probably still one of the nicest places to raise a family.”
It doesn’t matter if a criminal comes from Mars, Mr. Dodd. The crime still occurs in our town, and that contributes to the danger we face as Jackson residents, fair or not.
The folks at Union University’s student paper, the Cardinal & Cream, who apparently don’t think that keeping their online edition current past May is important, ran a similar story before the Quintino statistics were released. Not having the paper, which I threw away, in front of me, and not having the online edition, I’ll do my best to paraphrase from memory:
There’s been a rash of school shootings nationwide, and a few local cases of car break-ins and runaway fugitives on Union’s campus, but not to worry: Our staff of ten retirees with walkie-talkies and flashlights have been very well trained to respond quickly to a threat on campus, whether that be a fistfight or an active shooter. They are absolutely prepared to evacuate students and call the police.
The story ends with quotes from students walking around campus who say that they feel perfectly safe, thank you very much and don’t think anything “like that” could ever happen at their school.
I’m not saying that we need night-vision cameras and attack helicopters, but these when I listen to these folks talk all I hear is… Baaaaaaaaaah.
(As a more positive aside, next to the “I’m OK, You’re OK” article on the front page of the Jackson Sun was a story written by my wife. There’s some unexpected publicity.)