Don’t bet your life on Wikipedia and Reddit reviews – also, another reason why CCW is important
From the Tampa Bay Times:
Pinellas sheriff yanks 309 rifles over ‘serious manufacturing’ issues
The final straw came when one of the weapons made by Odessa-based Adams Arms failed to fire.
The issues with the Adams Arms rifles began almost immediately.
The first batch of AR-15s ordered from the Odessa-based manufacturer by the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office had some trigger problems, Sheriff Bob Gualtieri said. Then, in later batches, a few rifles switched on their own from semi-automatic to fully automatic fire.
That is very, very bad.
The sheriff warned the company: Give us a refund or inspect every rifle and put it in writing that they’re functional.
Then came the final straw. A deputy went to shoot one of the rifles at the range and when she pulled the trigger, nothing happened.
That is worse.
Deputies traced the defect to the manufacturer. The sheriff had seen enough.
He took 309 Adams Arms rifles out of service last month, ordered replacements from a different manufacturer, and meantime reshuffled the remaining rifles.
Gualtieri is seeking a refund of just over $300,000 from the company.
That’s going to hit someone right in the Christmas bonus.
Another Tampa Bay area agency, the Pasco County Sheriff’s Office, also has Adams Arms rifles.
A spokesman said Friday that the office hadn’t found any issues with its weapons but was still reviewing the problems that Pinellas flagged.
I bet they will double and triple-check everything.
The progression of problems the Pinellas sheriff experienced raises questions about how the office decided to go with the boutique manufacturer in the first place.
The Adams Arms purchases didn’t go through a competitive bid process, the standard practice in government for purchases over a designated threshold where an agency solicits proposals from potential vendors and ranks them against each other.
This is why bids and competitions are important, they weed out problems like this. Also, something smells fishy…
Competitive bidding isn’t required by law for sheriffs, independent constitutional officers in Florida who are subject to rules different from those governing local governments.
Ummmm…
Still, experts say competitive bidding is still considered best practice for keeping the process transparent.
I agree.
Instead, Gualtieri relied on a memo from a training deputy that cited internet research.
“Everything you read on the internet is true.” – President A. Lincoln, April 13, 1865
Pinellas started buying rifles in or around 2006, Gualtieri said, originally from Rock River Arms, an Illinois-based manufacturer founded in 1993.
In February 2014, then-Deputy Matthew Seymour wrote a memo recommending Adams Arms. Seymour said the Adams Arms rifle was almost identical to the Rock River gun but featured an operating system that made it “a cleaner, cooler and more reliable running weapon.”
The original gas impingement system has served the military in almost every climate on earth, under a wide variety of conditions for over 50 years. The AR-15 was not designed to run a piston, and there are issues that piston systems cause in that platform. Only a few companies have developed really successful piston systems, the rest are novelties.
No law enforcement officer or civilian will ever be in the kind of firefight that gives any advantage to a piston system, and unless you are going to drop huge money on an HK or LWRC piston, it’s not a system I’d trust.
He compared Adams Arms to nine other brands, including giants such as Bushmaster and Ruger. In his comparison, he cited the manufacturer’s websites, online gun forums and Wikipedia.
“The idea to switch from Rock River to Adams Arms was pushed from the bottom up,” Gualtieri said.
So rather than test fire, they just used gun forums and Wikipedia.
Sounds like a fanboi got this department to buy a bunch of his favorite rifles. Makes me wonder if he has a buddy that works over there.
Gualtieri signed off on the purchase in April 2014. The first order was for 18 rifles at a cost of about $881 each.
Also included in the Pinellas deputy’s memo was a recommendation from a Pasco corporal, who said the agency was happy with the customer service at Adams Arms and found that the guns “operate flawlessly.”
Pasco County Sheriff’s spokesman Kevin Doll emphasized that the recommendation was from deputy to deputy and not an official recommendation by the Sheriff’s Office.
The Pasco agency didn’t go through a competitive bid process, either.
Why does the word “kickback” suddenly appear in my mind?
So two Sheriff’s departments bought guns based on internet reviews and a couple of deputies saying they loved the guns and did no trial testing. Now at least one department has major safety and reliability issues and has been burned on $300,000 of taxpayer money.
This whole thing is a disaster.
There are a lot of AR-15 makers out there, it has become a cottage industry.
That’s the good news. The bad news is not every maker builds to the same quality and reliability.
Before you bet your life on something, make sure it’s good.
Also, this is another good reason for concealed carry. Even if the police respond quickly, there is no guarantee that their equipment will function flawlessly.
Just think about what happens if an officer responds to an active shooter and his gun goes *click.* Who is going to save you now?
I missed this one: Judge confirms the end of Sanctuary Cities in Florida.
A federal judge has temporarily blocked a portion of a controversial Florida law that called on local police to cross state lines to assist federal immigration officials but left in place a provision where the officers would have to hold undocumented immigrants until the feds pick them up.
…
The law allows the governor or attorney general to take action on elected officials who don’t comply with the law, including removing them from office.
All Florida cops and elected officials will be forced to comply with ICE as of Tuesday
This was a nasty slap in the face of the Florida Liberals, specially the South section of the Miami Dade County. Now allow me to tell you how much of a controversy this has been down here: I found about this decision taken 8 days ago by sheer happenstance in a LEO sub-reddit. The news did not make waves significant waves when it was passed and then signed the same way almost nobody had heard the court’s decision from a week ago.
If a suspect has a retainer from ICE, it is more likely for a violent crime or gross immigration violation. The media always will print/show the poor mom who hs been 25 years illegally in the US and she has kids and grandkids born in the US as if hers was the type of case ICE only goes after. They will ignore the serial rapists or ultra violent illegals because it screws up the Open Borders narrative they support.
South Miami Mayor Stoddard said the decision makes for “bad law from a municipal standpoint.”
“As soon as the community perceives the local police as agents of ICE, they stop talking to the local police, and that makes everybody less safe,” he said. “Now, there will be a whole segment of our community unwilling to report crimes. It’s already the case in a lot of immigrant communities, and this makes it worse.”
Here is quick lesson on the demographics of Miami Dade. Although I am not sure exactly where the border line is, the South of the county is were the thick of the Mexicans and most Central Americans migrate for agricultural purposes with the exception of Hialeah Gardens which is also known as Little Nicaragua. The North is Cubans, the Caribbeans and pretty much the rest of South America: Colombians, Haitians, some Dominicans (they tend to move to NY with the Puerto Ricans), Venezuelans, Brazilians, etc.
There is no love lost between North and South of the County, same as in real life with the countries. Anybody saying this is a lie is trying to sell you a Liberal/Latinex political fantasy. I cannot speak for the proclivities and customs of the County Southerners, but the County Northerners have no issue with ICE deporting illegal aliens who are violent criminals. You wanna see a bunch of pissed off Latinos? Let them know that the guys who raped Little Maria was released on bail and it is now walking the streets because the Mayor believes in no extradition for violent scum just to poke Republicans in the eye. Pepe the Rapist will be invited to a picnic in the ‘Glades and would never be heard from again. And if they had the chance to invite the Mayor to the same festivities… Basically, if they can drop the dime on an Violent Illegal, they will do it and rightfully so because they love their families as much as any other ethnic group.
Oh well, draining the Swamp in Swamp Land was needed…
Portland is going to be the UTI capital of America, I hope they update their sick leave policy along with their bathrooms
Remember two weeks ago when Miguel wrote a post about how Portland is going to virtue signal and cater to the radical LGBT community – which makes up about 0.4% of the population – by spending millions of dollars to make all the bathrooms in the municipal building gender-neutral?
Once again, we turn to the British press to report on things the US press won’t.
The British press also serves as a window into our future as to what will happen when we adopt repressive, Woke laws to govern our land as well.
Girls are skipping school to avoid sharing gender neutral toilets with boys after being left to feel unsafe and ashamed
Menstruating girls are staying home for fear of being made to feel ‘period shame’
Some girls are risking infections by refusing to urinate all day or not drinking
Doctors and politicians called on schools to halt the move towards unisex toilets
Gender-neutral toilets in schools have left girls feeling unsafe and even put their health at risk, parents and teachers have warned.
Girls who are menstruating are so anxious about sharing facilities with boys that some are staying at home for fear of being made to feel ‘period shame’.
With a growing number of both primary and secondary schools installing unisex toilets, some girls are risking infections by refusing to urinate all day.
Others are so fearful they have stopped drinking liquids at school.
The trend for single-sex toilets is driven by the wish to be more inclusive of children who identify as transgender and wish to use the same facilities as the opposite sex.
But last night, doctors and politicians called on schools to halt the move towards unisex toilets to prevent any further harm to female pupils.
GP Tessa Katz said holding in urine for prolonged periods on a regular basis could increase the risk of girls suffering urinary and bladder infections.
‘The psychological effects of girls not feeling safe enough to use mixed-sex toilets is also concerning,’ Dr Katz said.
Does anybody believe that women in Portland are much different than girls in the UK when it comes to not wanting to be seen using the toilet?
Consider that this is a municipal building, and like libraries, they are open to the public. Homeless often use municipal bathrooms, like library bathrooms, for grooming and doing drugs.
So what Portland has done is made it even easier for a vagrant to spy on a woman while she is using the toilet.
I’ll tell you, as a man, the idea of a gender-neutral bathroom terrifies me because I am afraid of the potential to be falsely accused of spying on a woman in the toilet. Imagine being a boss and seeing a female subordinate you just reprimanded go into the stall next to yours.
The Portland city government may proclaim that it has done a great deed toward gender inclusion and equality. What they’ve really done is condemned the majority of their female employees and customers to a horrible workplace and physical and mental stress, and threw open the door to make employees to an increased possibility for false sexual impropriety claims.
This seems like a worthwhile use of taxpayer dollars to me.
Taco Bell Slashing and the need to evolve even to our inconvenience.
A Taco Bell customer in Sandy received a seven-year prison sentence for slashing the throat of a stranger who objected to her invective-laced rant about the restaurant’s service – all of which transpired as her two young children and boyfriend waited in their car, authorities said.
Caley Mason, 22, of Maryland pleaded guilty in Clackamas County last month to second-degree assault in the brutal knife attack that left Jason Luczkow, 48, with an 8-inch gash from ear to Adam’s apple.
Mother who slashed stranger’s throat during Taco Bell beef in Sandy sentenced to 7 years
Violence at Fast Food restaurants are no longer an unusual event. For some reason that escapes my comprehension, there is a segment of the population that believed that the old “The customer is always right” gives them unlimited powers to abuse workers and other customers. Is it as if somehow the act of spending $6 for tacos and a burrito makes them owners of the establishment. It has gotten so bad that if you go to YouTube, you will see “freakout” dedicated channels showing not just any confrontation but what they qualify as the best of.
The missus and yours truly no longer go inside fast food restaurants. If we (OK, if I) have the hankering for something, the drive-thru is used or we do without. And yes, I know the caveats of drive-thru and talked about them here, but the number of people going stupid inside vastly surpass troubles at the drive-thru.
I know that parents have to cater sometimes to the kids’ demand for fries, or pizza and toys from the munchkins (damned emotional blackmailers!) , so I understand why you will be forced to attend a restaurant they like, but at the same time you need to train them to the fact that if you say a key sentence, they have to drop what they are eating/playing with and go out with you without engaging in a “But Whyyyyyyy?” chant and drag their feet.
And please, leave at the first sign of trouble. Just because you overpaid for crappy cheese pizza does not mean you can put your kid and yourself in the path of a flying piece of furniture. Get out!