Hands-on With the Nerf Stampede ECS-50

by John Biggs
from: http://www.crunchgear.com/

A lot of folks are like “I would love to shoot a lot of Nerf darts at my friends and fellow cubicle dwellers, but my arm is too weak to keep pumping the Nerf gun. What can I do?” Dude. Get a Nerf Stampede ECS-50. This fully automatic gun shoots 18 darts in about a minute and includes 3 full clips and one smaller 5 dart clip. It also has a bipod and a blast shield.

Seriously. This is a monster. I’ve never seen a Nerf gun like this one. It makes you feel like freaking Rambo with a gut.

Click through for video.

The first fully automatic NERF Clip System blaster to date, the N-STRIKE STAMPEDE ECS blaster features a new pop-out bipod, which doubles as a handle, and a removable shield allowing players to transition to Attack Mode. The NERF N-STRIKE STAMPEDE ECS blaster also comes complete with one six dart Clip and three extended Clips which hold 18 darts each, offering the highest Clip capacity from NERF yet. The NERF N-STRIKE ECS blaster is one of the most awesome and exciting N-STRIKE developments released in over 40 years of NERF brand history. Includes 60 Clip System darts. Requires six D batteries; not included.

The gun will cost $55 once it’s available later this year. I’m not quite sure how appropriate something like this is for the kiddies – it’s a lot of fun but it is so totally badass that it belongs in Dad’s toy box rather than junior’s.

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Ping Pong, Pow: World’s Deadliest Pneumatic Ping Pong Gun

We’ve known some “friendly” ping-pong games to end in ruined friendships, obsessive rematches, and black eyes (those paddles hurt!) but until now, we’ve never known of any ping-pong-related fatalities. That’s probably going to change now that [what we assume is] the world’s most lethal ping-pong gun has been brought to life. The contraption was made by Denver artist/inventor Ron Kessinger and uses compressed air to shoot water-filled ping-pong balls so hard that they smash through particle board. That’s one way to convince your other half that you need to replace that old Ikea dresser.

Ron’s invention is sort of like a potato cannon, but with slightly different specs. Shooting empty ping-pong balls obviously wouldn’t cause the type of satisfying destruction that guys who make projectile “toys” enjoy, so obviously he injected them with water to make them heavier. When the gun was demonstrated at a recent Denver Maker Meetup, Ron dazzled the crowd by shooting balls through pieces of drywall and particle board.

The gun works off of a standard wall outlet and has a 14-shot magazine. But really, one shot will probably be enough to settle whatever ping-pong dispute you manage to get yourself into.

Arizona approves bill allowing guns in bars

Critics of the measure say guns and alcohol are dangerous combination

The Associated Press

PHOENIX - The Arizona Senate has given final approval to a bill that would allow people with concealed weapons permits to carry a gun into a business that serves alcohol.

The 19-8 vote completes legislative action on the bill and sends it to Republican Gov. Jan Brewer. She has not said whether she will sign it, but she has long been a supporter of gun rights.

The measure has pitted powerful groups representing gun and bar owners against each other, sparking a debate about whether guns and alcohol can coexist without bloodshed.

Critics of the measure say guns and alcohol are a dangerous combination.

"We don't let people drink and drive, why should we let them drink and carry guns?" said Sen. Paula Aboud, D-Tucson, who voted against the bill.

Supporters say they should be able to protect themselves and their families even if they happen to be inside a business serving alcohol.

"It's very important that criminals are now afraid rather than law abiding citizens," said Sen. Jack Harper, R-Surprise, the bill's sponsor.

The measure would ban drinking while packing and allow restaurants to deny entry to gun-toting citizens by posting a sign next to their liquor license.

The bill initially required that a bar serving alcohol also serve food, but that provision was removed at the request of bar owners who worried about uncertainty over which bars have kitchens.

Forty other states have approved similar measures, according to the National Rifle Association.

Former Gov. Janet Napolitano, a Democrat, vetoed a similar bill earlier this decade that would not have required people to have concealed weapons permits in order to carry guns in bars.

More than 127,000 Arizonans have concealed weapons permits, which require a gun safety course and background check, according to the Arizona Department of Public Safety.

Copyright 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Gun-Loving Pastor: Piece Be With You

By AP Staff

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – A Kentucky pastor is inviting his flock to bring guns to church to celebrate the Fourth of July and the Second Amendment.

New Bethel Church is welcoming "responsible handgun owners" to wear their firearms inside the church June 27, a Saturday. An ad says there will be a handgun raffle, patriotic music and information on gun safety.

"We're just going to celebrate the upcoming theme of the birth of our nation," said pastor Ken Pagano. "And we're not ashamed to say that there was a strong belief in God and firearms -- without that this country wouldn't be here."

The guns must be unloaded and private security will check visitors at the door, Pagano said. He said recent church shootings, including the killing Sunday of a late-term abortion provider in Kansas, which he condemned, highlight the need to promote safe gun ownership.

The New Bethel Church event was planned months before Dr. George Tiller was shot to death in a Wichita church.

Kentucky allows residents to openly carry guns in public with some restrictions. Gun owners carrying concealed weapons must have state-issued permits and can't take them to schools, jails or bars, among other exceptions.

Pagano's Protestant church, which attracts up to 150 people to Sunday services, is a member of the Assemblies of God. The former Marine and handgun instructor said he expected some backlash, but has heard only a "little bit" of criticism of the gun event. John Phillips, an Arkansas pastor who was shot twice while leading a service at his former church in 1986, said a house of worship is no place for firearms. "A church is designated as a safe haven, it's a place of worship," said Phillips, who was shot by a church member's relative for an unknown reason and still has a bullet lodged in his spine.

"It is unconscionable to me to think that a church would be a place that you would even want to bring a weapon."

Phillips spoke out against a bill before the Arkansas General Assembly that would have permitted the carrying of guns in that state's churches. The bill failed in February.

Pagano, 50, said some members of his church were concerned that President Obama's administration could restrict gun ownership, and they supported the plan for the event when Pagano asked their opinion.

Marian McClure Taylor, executive director of the Kentucky Council of Churches, an umbrella organization for 11 Christian denominations in Kentucky, said Christian churches are promoters of peace, but "most allow for arms to be taken up under certain conditions."

Taylor said Pagano assured her the event would focus on promoting responsible gun ownership and any proceeds would go to charity.

"Those two commitments are consistent with the high value the Assemblies of God churches place on human life," she said in an e-mail message.

Pagano is encouraging church members to bring a canned good and a friend to the event. He said guns must be unloaded for insurance purposes and safety reasons. He said the point was not to mix worship with guns, though he may reference some passages from the Bible.

"Firearms can be evil and they can be useful," he said. "We're just trying to promote responsible gun ownership and gun safety."

Shots fired at model Gisele Bündchen's wedding

Paparazzi dodge bullets after being caught taking unauthorised pictures of newlyweds Gisele Bündchen and Tom Brady

Robert Booth

Shots were fired near Gisele Bündchen's beachfront home. Photograph: Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images

Gisele Bündchen, the Brazilian supermodel, and her husband, the American football star Tom Brady, have taken the task of keeping their wedding photos exclusive to extremes, it has emerged.

A pair of celebrity photographers had the back window of their Suzuki SUV shot out by security guards when they tried to flee with snatched stills and videos of the happy couple's big day at Bündchen's villa in Mal Pais, Costa Rica.

The Boston Herald, which claims to have exclusive pictures of the wedding that it plans to publish tomorrow, said the paparazzi were from the INF photo agency, and were hiding in bushes near Bündchen's beachfront home taking pictures of the event when they were caught by the newlyweds' security guards.

"The photographers, identified as Yuri Cortez and Rolando Aviles, were marched to Bündchen's villa where they were ordered to surrender their still photos and video," the paper reported. "The men refused and fled with the security guards in pursuit. Two of the photographers ran to a waiting SUV and jumped in as a guard fired a shot at them, the photo agency said. The bullet shattered the Suzuki's rear window, passed between the two men in the front seat and bounced off the windshield."

No one was injured, but the incident gives a new meaning to the term "shotgun wedding". New York Daily News has a picture of the shot-up car. According to the Can't Stop the Bleeding blog, Cortez was shocked. "I couldn't believe it when I realised what they had done," he told the photo agency. "I could have lost my life for the sake of some pictures that Gisele didn't want published. Are they insane?"

5 Things You Didn't Know: AK-47

By Michael Hodges

Guns have always been a fascinating topic in America. From who's using them to what model, make and brand they are, guns have become a staple in our modern society. Now, whether that's a sad or thrilling fact, we've decided to let our readers in on some interesting facts about one of America's most loved (and hated) assault rifles: the AK-47.

With a new book on the market entitled AK-47: The Story of the People's Gun, Michael Hodges is an expert on this particular weapon, and we got Hodges to let us in on a few little-known facts about the AK-47 while researching his work.

1- The inventor of the AK-47 did not profit from the gun

Although by some estimates there are 100 million AK-47-style assault rifles in circulation around the world, the gun's inventor, Mikhail Kalashnikov, did not become rich (unlike Eugene Stoner, the inventor of the American M16 assault rifle, who died a wealthy man). Communist states had no patents, and until its collapse in 1991, Kalashnikov was simply an employee of the Soviet Union. “I invented a weapon to save the motherland, to save the state from fascism,” he said. “My career has been dedicated to my country.”

Despite that country awarding him the Hero of Socialist Labor medal and many other accolades, this particular Socialist hero, who just happened to change the world, started life as an enemy of the Soviet Union. Kalashnikov narrowly escaped being shot by Stalin's special police after his family was denounced as Kulaks in 1932, and exiled to Siberia. Kalashnikov escaped again when a Panzer shell blew him from his tank in 1941, as the Soviets fought desperately to halt the Nazi advance on Moscow.

2- The AK-47 is the perfect weapon for children

The AK-47 can be stripped in under a minute and cleaned quickly in almost any climatic condition. Even if it isn’t cleaned, an AK-47 is still more likely to fire than any of its rivals given similar treatment on the battlefield. With only eight moving parts the AK-47 is cheap to manufacture and easy to use -- so easy in fact that children can be taught how to properly handle this weapon in a single hour. Sudanese child soldier Emmanuel Jal picked up his first AK-47 when he was 9 years old. A fully loaded AK-47 weighs four kilograms: “I don’t know how I lifted the AK when I was tired. It was so heavy,” he remembers. “We only had a few AKs but we weren’t scared, it was like a game with toy guns. When the fighting starts you can put the gun down and run away, or pull the trigger. Once you’ve done that you are hooked; it makes you think that no one can touch you. Once you've fired an AK-47 you become brave.”

3- America may have given bin Laden his first AK-47

Since 1998, Osama bin Laden has regularly included an AK-47 in the propaganda videos he releases after terrorist outrages. Consequently, the gun has come to represent the global jihad, and AK-47 is an integral part of the regime at fundamentalist camps, as far apart as the English home counties and the jungles of the Philippines.

These groups and their adherents are dedicated to the destruction of Israel and America -- yet it is highly likely that it was Israel and America that inadvertently put an AK-47 into bin Laden’s hands. When the Israel Defense Forces invaded Lebanon in 1982 to “crush” the Palestinian Liberation Organization they captured thousands of AK-47s.These guns found their way, via the CIA and the Pakistani Inter-Service Intelligence Agency, to the Mujahadeen resisting the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. It is probable that amongst them would have been the AK-47 that equips bin Laden.

4- The AK-47 is the U.S. army’s most resilient enemy

U.S. forces first came into large-scale contact with the AK-47 during the Vietnam War. Their own M16s malfunctioned in the heat and damp of the jungle, but the Chinese-supplied AK-47s used by the communists continued to fire. Consequently, thousands of GIs picked up AK-47s from fallen Viet Cong guerrillas. This led Americans to open fire on their own side because they presumed the distinctive pop-pop-pop sound of an AK-47 revealed an enemy position. So many GIs threw away their guns in favor of AK-47s that a House of Representatives hearing in 1971 discovered that the U.S. Army attempted to stop the media reporting the phenomenon. Today, nearly 40 years later, in the sand and heat of Iraq, American soldiers are once again giving up their own U.S.-manufactured weapons in favor of the AK-47.

5- The AK-47 is the weapon of choice for U.S. mass murderers

On January 17, 1989, Patrick Purdey walked into the Cleveland Elementary School in Stockton, California, armed with a Chinese-manufactured AK-47. It was fitted with a barrel magazine holding 75 rounds -- both of which he bought legally over a gun-shop counter. When he walked out again five children were dead and 29 were injured. In December 1997, Arturo Reyes Torres entered his former place of work, the Caltrans Maintenance Yard, with an AK-47, killed four and wounded two. There are many more examples of AK-47 murders in the U.S. The online Urban Dictionary defines “Columbine” like so: “The constant bullying of the preppies and jocks has caused him to pick up his AK-47 and go Columbine on everyone.”

Ironically, the Columbine killers did not use AK-47s, but it doesn’t matter; in America gun crime is now perceived as AK crime.

rifle-ing through history

From the killing grounds of Sadr City to the murderous barrios of Bogotá, from the battlefields of Somalia to the ghettos of the United States, the AK-47 dominates the world. Invented by a Russian tank commander at the end of World War II, by rights it should be in the dustbin of history. However, such was the genius of his design that 60 years later -- for millions of unfortunate people around the world, and scores of countries wracked by conflict -- Mikhail Kalashnikov's iconic assault rifle is both the present and, tragically, the future.

To learn even more about the AK-47, check out Michael Hodges' book, AK-47: The Story of the People's Gun.