News Brief – 11/8

Colt wants anyone who may have bought a black rifle made after March 5, 2021, to stop using their guns and check with them to see if it may fall inside a serial number/model range that may have a bad hammer.

Why? “Colt is voluntarily initiating a recall to protect the safety of its customers because, under certain conditions, it is possible that some of these MSRs may discharge a second round when the trigger is released when there is a live round in the chamber.”

Like we said, Colt wants those bonus accidentally binary triggers back.

Larry Vickers, the famed former Delta Force operator behind Vickers Tactical, has been in the news in a bad way recently with reports that, A) he has been battling cancer, and B) the ATF came by and picked up all his machine guns due to a lapsed FFL or something.

One hard-to-kill guy, Vickers just popped back up on his YT channel firing an M4A1, looking a lot lighter in the frame and sporting a mustache. Hard to keep a good guy down, it seems.

Just when you thought the “5 million strong” NRA was struggling to stay above the scandal, a Russian (!) hacker group has seized their data and is releasing it as a sort of a ransomware proof of life to get paid those sweet crypto dollars. While the logical end of this would involve Wayne O simply calling in a favor from Moscow, for the time being, it is another black eye for the group.

Unless you have been under a rock and didn’t hear, last week the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the case of the New York State Rifle & Pistol Assn. v. Bruen, with Bruen being the head of the NY State Police, sued in his official capacity. You can check it out in a 136-page official transcript or a two-hour audio clip. The takeaway from about every legal beat reporter that writes in English is that, based on the give and take between the justices and the lawyers before them, New York’s concealed carry permitting plan may be circling the drain.

A final decision is expected sometime next year, as late as June, and could impact up to 80 million folks in the seven blue states with “may issue” or “no issue” concealed carry practices: California, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, and Rhode Island.

Ok, so you know that Springfield Armory has their new SA-35 Hi-Power clone that was announced two weeks ago. Since then, the guns– which have an MSRP of $699– are now being scalped by online dealers for more than twice as much.In the meantime, EAA, who is planning to bring in the Turkish-made Girsan MC P35 in three different finishes (Two Tone, Blue Black, and Dark Earth) for around $500 ish, is being sued by Springfield Armory because the importer spoofed their SA-35 announcement to advertise the Turkish guns.

Speaking of Springfield Armory, earlier this year they debuted a natty new M1911A1, the stainless steel Emissary, which has a distinctive squared trigger guard and flat monolithic trigger. A good-looking gun to be sure, Springer is now growing the line with a 9mm version as well as a Commander-sized (4.25-inch barrel rather than the standard 5-inch barrel). MSRP for each is $1,279.

The National Shooting Sports Foundation crunched the FBI’s data from the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) for October 2021 and concluded that 1,427,264 checks were done for gun sales last month.

While a decrease of almost 20 percent compared to the October 2020 NSSF-adjusted NICS figure of 1,769,553, the figures are still bonkers when compared to the other 20 Octobers on record going back to 1999, resting at the second-highest, only bested by the data from last year. Short take: folks are still buying lots of guns compared month over month with previous years. Like near-record.

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