All Outdoor

What has happened to squirrel hunting? Or should I say squirrel hunters? Squirrel hunting ought to be a top small game hunting sport, but over the past decade or so it seems to have faded into obscurity. Surely there are still hunters out there quietly stalking bushtails around the woods, but you sure don’t hear much about them. Traditional outdoor publications hardly give them a nod. Wonder why that is?

Trouble seems to follow Gaston Glock around – although some would argue, probably convincingly, that he has been known to create plenty of trouble on his own.

Georgia, USA – Two 2014 laws passed by the Georgia state legislature and signed two days apart are in direct conflict over whether residents can carry firearms onto school property.

This is from the oldie-but-goodie department. When a wild hog got into a Chinese Hospital in 2011, the police went after it. From the way this officer’s pistol is pointing, I’d say he follows Mike Rowe’s “Dirty Jobs” motto: “Safety third.”

Sylacauga, Alabama – We all know it’s not a good idea to bring a club to a gunfight. Well, most of us do.

40-year-old Bobby Dean Hall recently learned this, too.

Hall attempted to rob a man who was walking down the street. Hall wielded a large stick and demanded that the man give him money.

(He probably didn’t say, “This is a stick-up…”)

The man’s response was to draw his handgun and point it at Hall, who very reasonably got the hell out of there.

The man proceeded to his home, then called police to report the incident and give a thorough description of his would-be assailant. Officers used the description to locate and arrest Hall. It was not Hall’s first arrest.

Police chief Chris Carden was quoted as saying, “I’m… extremely proud of the victim whom I spoke with today and thanked for his service.”

Kansas City, Missouri – The Kansas City Council banned openly-carried firearms this summer, but recently had to amend the ban – or allow everyone to carry openly. While some are reporting this as a lift of the ban, it’s really just a modification.

Bay County, Florida – In a shooting ruled to be self defense and thus justifiable, 21-year-old Kyle Ivey was forced to shoot his 41-year-old father James Ivey – after his father shot him.

It is awfully fun to find new high quality gear. The endless browsing that modern mobile devices not only allow but encourage makes it very easy to stumble on gems that folks don’t know about yet. Halpern Titanium, right here in my home state of Massachusetts, is just such a gem.

I was recently fortunate to spend an hour on stage at Google HQ in Mountain View, CA chatting with former Googler, professional marksman, and Top Shot Season 4 Champion Chris Cheng about his new book, Shoot To Win. The video is now up on on YouTube, and I encourage you to go check it out.

Chris and I cover a wide range of gun-related topics, from the techniques he used to win on Top Shot to Gun Culture 1.0 vs 2.0, and everything in between.

Look for a review of Chris’s book here, soon. A teaser: it’s a great intro to shooting for people who are new to guns, and for the more experienced the discussion of marksmanship fundamentals is first-rate.

Joshua McCann, a 22-year-old truck driver from Wisconsin pulled into a parking lot in San Antonio, Texas, and was approached by a man claiming to be a police officer. When the man told McCann to get out of the truck, he did so.

McCann said he then asked to see the man’s badge, and that’s when the guy said he was going to steel McCann’s truck.

McCann responded by drawing his concealed firearm and shooting the would-be thief “approximately three times in the abdomen.”

When police arrived, they found the fellow lying on the pavement; he was later pronounced dead at an area hospital.

McCann’s story was confirmed by witnesses.

I wonder why McCann felt the need to use deadly force? It is unknown whether the suspect was armed, as no mention of it was made in the articles I’ve read. One article did note that McCann was unlikely to face criminal charges, so it must have been justified.

Jan Morgan made headlines in September when she declared her wish to make her indoor gun range “a Muslim Free Zone.”

In July, I reported a judge’s ruling which said the city government and police chief of Washington, D.C. may not prevent citizens from carrying guns outside of their homes “unless and until such time as the District of Columbia adopts a licensing mechanism consistent with constitutional standards enabling people to exercise their Second Amendment right to bear arms.”

Knabenschiessen!

Memphis, TN – Off-duty officer Lester Hobbs left his handgun on a bathroom towel rack after using the facilities while at his second job at Dillard’s department store in Oak Court Mall. When he realized he didn’t have his gun, he returned to the bathroom, but surprise – it was gone.

From 1935 until 2014, a county in North Carolina required gun owners to register their firearms with the county clerk. Alleged to be a “Jim Crow” law aimed at disarming or otherwise disenfranchising black citizens, the law was certainly unconstitutional and thus illegal. But it stood for decades, while Durham county kept records of guns and citizens’ guns for almost 80 years.

Two men in masks reportedly invaded a home in Katy, Texas, assaulted and restrained the two male occupants, and threatened one with death.

Carrying a gun openly may seem like a good idea, but giving away your secrets is almost always a bad move. William Coleman III of Gresham, Oregon learned that the hard way when his openly-carried – and newly-purchased – pistol was stolen from him at gunpoint.

Nikon makes good optics, and have been doing so for years. I have owned several of their rifle scopes over the years, and in past years I have done considerable work in land surveying, and know their reputation there is also good.

On September 16, 2014, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) released a report asserting that “mass shootings” have become more frequent since 2000. This report was widely cited by many media outlets, and because it was government-issued, the data was trusted. As it turns out, the data is far from trustworthy.

I love finding goodies in the great outdoors. And this find was pretty cool for a fisherman on Castaic Lake, a manmade reservoir in California.