https://www.nhbr.com/demand-for-guns-outpaces-sturm-rugers-production/

An unprecedented run on guns — partly due to Covid-19 — is so strong, that Sturm Ruger and Company can’t produce them fast enough, again partly due to Covid-19. “The incredible surge in demand outstripped our production capacity, ” said CEO Christopher Killoy, in an earnings call on Thursday. In his 30 years in the industry, “This is probably the strongest level of demand that I’ve seen,” including the surge preceding the assault weapons ban.

The company, headquartered in Connecticut but with a major facility in Newport, NH, reported second quarter sales are $130 million, up by more than a quarter, with a net income of $18.6 million, a $1.05 a diluted share – triple the profits from the same quarter last year. But that was limited by production capacity. The number of units ordered nearly doubled in the first quarter and nearly tripled in the second.

The thirst for firearms – despite the recent bankruptcy of Ruger’s rival Remington Arms Company (for the second time within a year) – is industry wide. Background checks are up 65% for the half, and 92% for the second quarter. Ruger’s comparable increase (the estimate unit sell though) was a mere 47%. As a result, the inventories at Ruger andother brands “was largely depleted in the second quarter and remains at very low levels.”

Killoy attributed the “staggering increase” for “personal protection and home defense stemming from continuing Covid-19 pandemic; protests, demonstrations and civil unrest in many cities throughout the United States and lastly, the call by some for the reduction in funding and authority of various law enforcement organizations.”

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Source: The Hill

An active-duty Army sergeant from Fort Hood says he was the one who shot and killed a man at a Black Lives Matter protest in Austin, Texas, last weekend, according to the sergeant's attorney.

Sgt. Daniel Perry said he fired at Garrett Foster out of self-defense after Foster allegedly raised an assault rifle toward Perry, according to a statement from the attorney obtained by The Washington Post.

According to the statement, Perry was driving for a ride-share company in downtown Austin on the night of July 25 when he turned a corner toward a protest he did not know was taking place.

At that point, the attorney says protesters began beating on Perry's car. Foster then allegedly approached the car window holding an assault rifle.

Read more: https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/509987-fort-hood-sergeant-says-he-shot-and-killed-armed-black-lives-matter

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/london/nazi-auction-war-objects-1.5653383

An international Jewish group is calling on an Ontario auction house to stop the online sale of scores of German items from the Second World War, many adorned with swastikas and some bearing the image of Nazi leader Adolf Hitler. Shackelton Auctions, near Aylmer, Ont., posted an online sale this week of 1,200 items of military memorabilia from a private estate sale.

But among the Royal Canadian Legion berets, ration cards and war bond posters are about 100 objects from Nazi-era Germany, including Hitler youth daggers and postcards with Hitler's image — along with flags, medals and armbands, many emblazoned with swastikas. There are also cast iron busts of Hitler, German officers' swords and toys of German armour and soldiers. Most of the items already have bids in the auction, which is set to end on Aug. 18.

The auction's web page includes a statement that says the items "do not represent the views or opinions of Shackelton Auctions or Sackrider Auctions or their staff." But Jaime Kirzner-Roberts of the Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center for Holocaust Studies said the auction should be stopped. She's also calling for laws that would make the sale of such items illegal in Canada.

"Our position is that it's disgusting and unacceptable that people should be buying and selling relics of murder and genocide," she said. "We find it very difficult to imagine any legitimate reason why someone would want to possess them." CBC News contacted Shackelton owner and auctioneer Mike Shackelton about the sale. He said while he sympathizes with those concerned about the items being sold, he will not take them off the auction block.

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https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/starship-sn5-completes-engine-test-203146457.html

The sixth full-scale testing prototype of SpaceX's Starship has successfully completed a key static fire test of its Raptor engines, according to SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk . The so-called "SN5" Starship prototype is now ready to move on to a 150m (nearly 500 feet) short-duration flight test, which would mark the furthest yet that one of these testing spacecraft has made it through SpaceX's planned development program.

SpaceX has been building and testing Starship prototypes (which are designated by the "SN" followed by their number in sequence) since last year, after the company first built a sub-scale demonstrator that was made up of basically just the base of a Starship with a single Raptor engine mounted to demonstrate low-altitude flight and landing capabilities.

Since then, SpaceX has been building full-scale demonstration prototypes to perform more test flights, initially seeking to go immediately into high-altitude testing. These were known as Mk1 and Mk2, and Mk1 was destroyed during pressure tank testing, while Mk2 was scrapped with the company turning its focus to Mk3 (renamed SN1, starting the new naming convention for the series). The prototypes that have been developed since have been built and tested rapidly, with SN3 and SN4 both suffering catastrophic failures during the testing process.

SpaceX has successfully test-fired the SN5 prototype, however, as of today, and will now move on to the first low-altitude "hop" flight of full-scale prototype test vehicle.

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https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/30/us/ferguson-missouri-michael-brown-darren-wilson-no-charges/index.html

(CNN)No charges will be filed against former Ferguson, Missouri, police Officer Darren Wilson after a reinvestigation into the 2014 shooting death of 18-year-old Michael Brown, St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Wesley Bell said Thursday.
The investigation didn't exonerate Wilson, Bell said.

Wilson's shooting of Brown, a Black man, in August 2014 sparked a federal civil rights inquiry, protests, and a national debate. Protests erupted around the country after a grand jury declined to indict Wilson.

"Although this case represents one of the most significant moments in St. Louis' history, the question for this office was a simple one," Bell said. "Could we prove beyond a reasonable doubt that when Darren Wilson shot Michael Brown, he committed murder or manslaughter under Missouri law?"

"After an independent and in-depth review of the evidence, we cannot prove that he did," Bell said.

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https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/asia-pacific-tourism-makes-patchy-070247326.html

PARIS (AP) — With no American visitors to show around the D-Day beaches or the Loire Valley’s chateaux, and no work on the immediate horizon, Paris tour guide Linda Zenou frets about how she’ll pay off a loan and continue to care for her ailing mother in the achingly lean months ahead. “My situation is going to become completely inextricable,” she said. “We have nothing to live on.”

For growing numbers of businesses and individuals who depend on the global tourism industry, the question is not so much when the coronavirus pandemic will end but how and if they'll survive until business picks up. In trying to fend off the virus, countries that put up entry barriers to tourists have done so at a mounting cost to themselves and others.

“It’s now survival of the fittest,” said Johann Krige, CEO of the Kanonkop wine estate in South Africa, where the drying up of wine-tasting tourists threatens dozens of wine farms around the historic town of Stellenbosch, near Cape Town. “A lot of them are going to go under because they just don’t have sufficient cash flow,” Krige said.

Around the world, travel amid the pandemic is becoming a story of tentative steps forward in some places, but punishing steps back elsewhere, of “yes” to letting back visitors from places faring somewhat better against COVID-19 but not from others where outbreaks are flaring. The result is an ever-evolving global mishmash of restrictions and quarantines, all of which are providing zero long-term visibility for businesses trying to make payrolls and for everyone in the industry from trinket sellers to luxury hotels.

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https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/27/us/teens-memphis-crowded-mini-golf.html

Hundreds of teenagers crowded a mini golf center in Memphis this weekend, leaving flower pots smashed, the concession area in shambles and employees wondering how a putt-putt park could devolve into a ruckus involving the police, a stampede and a viral video of the chaos. The crowd at the center, the Golf and Games Family Park, gradually grew larger over the course of Saturday, until the number of people became “pretty unsustainable,” Aaron Bos, a general manager, said.

At one point, 300 to 400 teenagers had gathered at the mini golf park, according to Lt. Karen Rudolph, a spokeswoman for the Memphis Police Department. She noted that the crowd was in violation of the city’s coronavirus restrictions. It was not immediately clear why so many teenagers came to the park, and the teenagers who were present could not immediately be identified. Mr. Bos said he had heard it was coordinated on social media.

The situation deteriorated quickly after Mr. Bos spotted teenagers “jumping over the rails and hopping in cars” at the go-kart attraction, he said. Then fights started breaking out, he said. He decided to close the park, which only escalated the situation. Frustrated teenagers demanded refunds, Mr. Bos said, despite his offer that any credits purchased could be used at a later date.

About 50 teenagers “shoved past the manager and mobbed the concession area,” Mr. Bos said, noting that he did not see any of them wearing masks. The indoor area at the park was limited to 50 percent capacity, or around 100 people; the crowding was mostly outdoors before a group moved inside, he said. A group of girls asked Mr. Bos for money back using an obscenity, he said. One girl hurled a plexiglass divider and a metal post over the counter at employees, in an altercation caught on a video that has been circulating widely on social media.

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https://www.newsweek.com/elon-musk-grimes-pronouns-gender-neutral-1520459

Elon Musk was scolded on social media by his partner, the musician Grimes, after he sent a tweet that appeared to disparage the use of gender neutral pronouns.

In a tweet on Friday, the Tesla CEO added a red rose emoji to his Twitter name used as a symbol for the Democratic Socialists of America and wrote the message "pronouns suck." Underneath the message, Grimes wrote in a tweet that has since been deleted: "I love you but please turn off ur phone or give me a dall. I cannot support hate. Please stop this. I know this isn't your heart (sic)."

A screen shot of her message has been reported by a number of media outlets.

In May, the couple announced the birth of their first child together, whom they named X Æ A-XII Musk. Grimes, real name Claire Boucher, has said that they will opt for a gender-neutral parenting style, telling fans on YouTube in February: "I don't want to gender them in case that's not how they feel in their life."

https://dayton247now.com/news/local/man-shown-kneeling-on-2-year-olds-neck-jailed

MOOREFIELD TOWNSHIP, Clark County, Ohio (WKEF/WRGT) -- A man shown on social media kneeling on the neck of a 2-year-old boy is in jail. Photos of a man kneeling on the child with the banner comment "BLM Now" had been circulating on social media before The Clark County Sheriff's Office began investigating. "Two divisions of the Clark County Sheriff's Office immediately began an investigation to determine the location of the incident and the identities of the individuals involved," a sheriff's office statement reads.

Deputies were able to make contact with the mother, the child shown in the photo and the man also in the photo. That man, identified as 20-year-old Isaiah Jackson, was arrested immediately for a Parole Authority holder from the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction.

The child, whose identity is not being released, was taken to a hospital, where he was found to have not been injured because of the incident shown in the photo. The sheriff's office says the child's mother was unaware of the incident or the photo until the sheriff's office began investigating.

Investigators say they have prepared a case against Jackson and is awaiting the Clark County Prosecutor's Office to determine "the scope and breadth of the felony charges that will be supported."

https://www.wxyz.com/news/region/detroit/ex-con-to-be-arraigned-in-triple-murder-sparked-by-comments-over-his-gym-shoes

DETROIT (WXYZ) — Detroit police said a possible motive into Sunday night's triple murder at a Coney Island may have involved the shooter's gym shoes.

The suspect, 25-year-old Mickey Dane Douglass, an ex-con who is still on parole for robbery, claims someone made a comment about his gym shoes that made him feel threatened.

On surveillance video that is circulating on social media, no one appears to be threatening the shooter before he pulls out a handgun and, with his left hand still in his pocket, shoots the first victim in the head at close range.

Within a matter of seconds, four men have been shot - three of them killed.

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Murdering three people because someone was crticial of his shoes?

Madness.