We should be led by Osama bin Laden,” he said, then quickly corrected himself. “I mean Obama and Biden.
Was there not a single political consultant type who sat back and said ya know, if you run these two names together real fast, the result is not flattering?
Ya know, every time Tennessee makes the news or a blog buzz, it involves either something stupid or porn related. The latest is that a dirty movie was filmed on a Bartlett, TN playground.
Coincidentally, you can find the website that the TeeVee station doesn’t think you can handle by Googling Foxy Jacky, but I don’t recommend it. Especially at work or if you’re a Baptist minister. And especially if you’re a Baptist minister who is at work.
Meanwhile, from the article:
“I don’t have the words,” he said. “I’m a Baptist minister, and I have no words.”
They left off the part where he added: as long as that camera is on me. Brehd remarks: This, we should have noted, may be the first time a Baptist minister had no words.
Greg, in a post entitled Para Has Balls, says:
There is clearly a need to make your company stand out in a field of glitzy advertising. Innovation isn’t enough to sell a product, and traditional PR thinking does not include embracing the “New Media”. Early adopters of a new medium are the real risk-takers, especially when it can mean the success or failure of a business. However the risk can pay off huge if it succeeds. Many companies are starting to “dip their toes in the water”, but Para is the first to do it big. The question now: was Para’s money well spent?
Seems to be the question of the day. Continuing:
In sponsoring this event, they are receiving positive press, and some un-paid endorsements. Sure, they paid for the some gun bloggers to attend this training, but if the ‘typical’ gun blogger is anything it is honest. When Joe Huffman found a potential bug in the hardware, he didn’t ignore it. He was and is critical of Para. It is that honesty that lends credibility to all of the claims made over the last week.
That, I think, is key. Show of hands: have you ever seen a negative review of a product in a gun magazine? I never have. Not once. Every thing in a gun mag is obviously the greatest thing ever.
Continuing to look at blog outreach effectiveness, Robb says:
I’d love nothing more than to be called on by a company such as Para USA to let me know of new product lines, even if it was just an email. I’d love to be able to blog about certain events like the ‘insiders’ can. But to do so is a dangerous proposition for any company. Bloggers might get a little ad revenue from Google Ads or whatever, but we don’t lose business from being negative about a product.
Para is taking a big risk here.
They are indeed. Thus far, I’ve seen blogger reviews that are generally positive of the products we tested. The few negatives seem to be about the LDA’s interaction with the safety and whether the safety is even needed. Otherwise, most reviews seem positive. Even if the LDA is not your cup of tea, the folks shooting the 9mm single action seemed to like it.
And Para has Balls. After all, Tam said Para Does Not Want Me. Now, Kerby could have said that was fine and not brought her along. He did not. He instead put his money where his mouth was and told her to come on down and give the product a fair shake. She did and she liked it. That’s some powerful advertisement, right there. Now the question gets to how much reach that advertisement has. Judging by comments, it seems her testimonial may result in some sales.
To my gun snob mindset, 9mm Para Commander + Frangible Ammo = One Long Weekend of Suck.
Boy, was I wrong.
You’ll recall that Tam did not want to go but has since converted.
Seems to be a trend. I stated before I did not expect to like the LDA. But I liked it very much.
Seems she’s made a few converts in her comments section too.
Todd likes to conserve things, he’s green like that. He says he wants to make sure he leaves plenty on the Earth for his grandchildren to shoot at.
At the event, we went from riding around in this super cool bus to riding around in these beaters. Ford tough, my ass. Those are Chevys. If I were Chevy, I’d make a commercial for my Suburbans out of the fact that:
These vehicles had been rammed by other vehicles.
Been near IEDs.
We found spent grenades in them.
Shot up with simunition
Shot up with real ammo
Some of them even looked to have been flipped.
And they still ran. Though one did have the Check Engine light on. You know, right next to the gun holes in the dash.
The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Ownership says:
New York Concealed Carry Permit-Holder In Custody After “Bizarre” Workplace Shooting
Nowhere in the article does it say he is a Carry Permit-Holder. He has a pistol permit, which is required to own a pistol there. After all, it’s NY which requires permits for those and requires police approval for a concealed carry permit. These two positions are supported by the Brady Bunch, yet didn’t stop the shooting.
Update: Not so cut and dry. See comments from Jacob. I’m still leaning toward it not being a concealed carry permit.
On the power of positive thinking:
Those who believe in and hope for success often find themselves getting their asses kicked by people that actually work hard.
Don Gwinn (paraphrased) at the ParaUSA event.
For the same reason I won’t watch the Republican one: Same shit, different four years*.
I have been watching the Democratic convention and laughing my ass off, frankly at some of the hilarity.
Sounds painful.
Meanwhile, R. Neal from Knoxviews is live at the scene covering all the HopeCangetm!
Reports of riots. I hear that’s a side effect when exposed to too much HopeCangetm.
* say, one thing is different. No one is promising Free Healthcare For Everybodytm. What’s up with that?
At the event, I shot ParaUSA’s TAC S LDA in 45ACP. It’s a single stack 45 1911 style pistol with Para’s Light Double Action Trigger:
(pic stolen from Joe because I forgot my camera)
It was also decked out with a set of laser grips from Crimson Trace (more on those later). Now, let me say upfront that I did not go into this thing a fan of the LDA. I had some preconceptions about the trigger and went there expecting to not like it. But that changed.
On the gun, short version is that I liked it. The gun felt good, as most 1911s do. And I was a fan of the trigger. Essentially, the trigger seems to be a slightly longer and smoother version of triggers found on striker fired guns. It was clean, crisp and had a well-defined break. It was distinctively a two stage trigger with a longer first stage (not too long, just longer than the take up on, say, a GLOCK trigger). This was good for accuracy as you can take up the slack prior to firing a round.
I’m going to guess that I probably put about 800 – 1,000 or so rounds of ammo (maybe more, I tried to count but didn’t keep it up) through it this weekend. I never experienced a failure to fire nor a failure to feed. After the first two days of shooting, the slide stop didn’t hold the slide back on the last round for about the last hour of shooting. I cleaned it, and never had it happen after.
The general trend, as discussed by some other bloggers, is that those of us accustomed to shooting GLOCKs liked the trigger. Though I carry a GLOCK, I’m the first to admit that the trigger on a GLOCK is not my favorite. And, as one who carries a GLOCK, I was not a fan of the safety. In fact, I never once engaged the safety on it. I prefer the keep your booger-hook off the bang-switch safety that all guns come with.
Joe reported what he called a bug in the weapon. He and I tried a few times to duplicate that on my weapon and we could not. Also, for those of us used to shooting GLOCKs, it was never an issue as we’re not accustomed to manual safeties and, in my case, didn’t use them. The fix, IMO, for 1911 shooters is not to use the safety. Or Para could just stop putting the safety on them. You don’t need them with a double action trigger, generally.
The gun was plenty accurate and, as evidenced by Todd Jarrett, shot better than I could shoot it. It was reliable and fun to shoot. I plan on using the Para as an alternative carry piece and as the wife’s house gun. I think the all steel pistol had substantially less muzzle flip than my GLOCK 30, which (along with the smoother trigger) would probably make it more pleasant for my wife to shoot.
The pistol we shot came with a fiber optic front sight. I was amazed at how quickly I could acquire the front sight and how quickly I could get back on target using the fiber optic as opposed to the standard white dot I am accustomed to. The fiber optic really draws your eye to it. Also, the rear sight was adjustable. The rear sight was square shaped and I actually scraped myself on it a couple times due to the sharp edges. I asked Kerby from Para what can be done about that and he said that, in the past, they rounded them but people complained that they weren’t traditional sights. Now, they square them and people complain about the sharp edges.
Disassembly was easy (I’ve never disassembled a 1911 before) even though Kevin, while showing me how to do it, launched something about 3 yards through the air. And it was cool having Todd Jarrett clean my gun.
What others are saying about the TAC S LDA:
Robb:
The pistol was definitely more accurate than I was. By far. I watched Jarrett put the bullet in the same hole over and over. The wide groupings I made were my fault and my fault alone.
I don’t know how I’m going to swing it, but I’m buying the pistol. I was comfortable with it, it shot well, and I feel I could use it nicely in IDPA
Armed School Teacher summed it up: I’m selling one my guns and buying that one.
To be honest with you, I was not all that enamored with the idea of the Light Double Action trigger. I normally shoot a Kimber Classic Stainless full-sized Government model 1911, and it has, IMHO, the finest factory trigger I have ever pulled. The idea of a long trigger pull before a 1911 went “BANG!” just didn’t do it for me.
Now that I’ve shot it, I’ve got to say I like it. A lot. I might not use it as a competition pistol, but it has definite attraction as a carry piece.
The platform itself is reliable, however. A few people had issues with it, mostly people who were used to shooting standard single action 1911s, but I had only one FTF, and it was my fault for fumbling my grip. I also deliberately eschewed oil and cleaning throughout the day to see if it could take it without failing. It did.
Pics and reports from Joe and Kevin.
In hindsight, I think of the shoot house as a definite confidence builder. I learned in the shoot house that at 12 yards, I can take head shots under stressful conditions when the hostile target is surrounded by (and in some cases directly behind) a friendly.
I mentioned International Cartridge Corps. frangible green ammo here (short version was I liked it).
Others agree:
David Hardy: It was some astonishing stuff. Made by International Cartridge Corp., of Reynoldsville PA. It’s made of sintered copper and tin. The 9mms weighed in at 100 grains, the ,45s at 155. We shot steel plates at 3 yards and no splash back, no jacket fragments, a couple of times I felt something touch my leg, that was it. But it shot like the devil.
Kevin: I shot several hundred rounds of International Cartridge Corporation’s 155 grain .45ACP Green Elite TR non-toxic frangible flatpoint (loaded to 1,150fps) through my Para Tac-S this weekend without a single failure of any kind. I popped 8″ steel plates with it from 35 yards, and I did full magazine dumps on a steel plate from a distance of about three feet without anything splashing back on me but some dust. I didn’t have to worry about pieces of jacket coming back and sticking me (which has happened at distances considerably farther than three feet), nor did I need to worry about lead exposure.
Good stuff and comparably priced to ball ammo.
A plot to kill Barack Diddly Obama? Never mind, just the secret service once again getting too antsy. Seems to be a trend.
This isn’t gonna help Democrats appeal to the gun owner demographic.
* perfectly lawful gun too.
At the chow hall, they had a jukebox. It apparently only had one song on it because the three times it was playing, the song was Duality by Slipknot.
Don after he finished up the shoot house said (to the top of his lungs):
That scared the shit out of me but I’ve never had so much fun in my life.
Remember, I do this to entertain me, not you.
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