Free Republic

A new design for a self-guiding bullet could allow sharpshooters to accurately fire at targets a full mile away. The bullet, which is still in a prototype phase, is the brainchild of Sandia National Laboratories researchers Red Jones and Brian Kast. It is designed with built-in actuators and tiny fins that should allow it to rapidly adjust its path in flight. Designed with the military, law enforcement, and recreational shooters as potential customers, the bullet is four inches long and has an optical sensor embedded in its nose for the detection of a laser on its target, Sandia said in...

The U.S. Secret Service is investigating the origins of a photo on an Arizona police officer's Facebook page that shows a group of armed youths posing in the desert with what appears to be a bullet-ridden image of President Barack Obama on a T-shirt. Max Milien, a Secret Service spokesman, said on Friday that the agency was looking into the picture taken of seven youths, four of them toting guns, that turned up on the Facebook page of Sergeant Pat Shearer of the Peoria, Arizona, police department. 'Any time information is brought to our attention where an individual or a...

FREDERICKSBURG, Ohio -- An Ohio sheriff says a man cleaning his muzzle-loading rifle accidentally shot and killed a 15-year-old Amish girl driving a horse-drawn buggy more than a mile away. Holmes County Sheriff Timothy Zimmerly said Tuesday that the accident occurred Thursday night when a man fired his loaded rifle to clean it. He says the victim, Rachel Yoder of Fredericksburg, was nearly 1.5 miles away when she was shot in the head. No charges have been filed. Yoder was shot while traveling to her home in adjacent Wayne County, between Columbus and Akron. She was riding alone after attending...

This is bullet-proof human skin - made from spider silk and goat milk. Yes, really. Jalila Essaidi is testing the limits of human endurance, and it starts by having to milk spider-goats. Spider goats are otherwise innocent-looking goats that have been genetically engineered to produce milk packed with the protein made in spider's silk. (There is no definitive proof that this also gives them a propensity to skitter up walls or hide out in your sock drawer, but I think it does.) Once the goats are milked, Essaidi spins the protein into fiber that is ten times stronger than steel,...

Over a 10-year period, I kept track of stopping power results from every shooting I could find. I talked to the participants of gunfights, read police reports, attended autopsies, and scoured the newspapers, magazines, and Internet for any reliable accounts of what happened to the human body when it was shot. I documented all of the data I could; tracking caliber, type of bullet (if known), where the bullet hit and whether or not the person was incapacitated. I also tracked fatalities, noting which bullets were more likely to kill and which were not. It was an exhaustive project, but...

A man who had been living with a bullet in his head for 23 years successfully received surgery in April in the Chinese northern city of Zhang Jiakou, Chinese state media reported on Thursday. (April 21)

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) – Investigators say they now know what caused a small hole in a US Airways plane that travelled from Philadelphia to Charlotte Monday. Sources say a stray bullet struck the rear of the Boeing 737-400 as it was landing in Charlotte. A pilot making a pre-flight inspection during a lay-over discovered the hole towards the rear of the aircraft. “He noticed a small hole in the exterior of the fuselage towards the rear of the aircraft,” said US Airways spokeswoman Liz Landau. Landau said the Boeing 737 arrived at Charlotte from Philadelphia. She said there were no apparent...

The combat zone just got a little more high-tech as soldiers in Afghanistan began testing and training on five prototype weapons that fire smart bullets. Army officials are calling the XM25 Counter Defilade Targeting Engagement System revolutionary since it is the first time soldiers will have a smart weapon in their hands. Smart weapons have some form of a processing unit that allows them to be self-guided or, in this case, have self-adjusting sights and programmable rounds. The XM25 — which is not much bigger than a standard service rifle — fires 25 mm rounds that can be programmed to...

Sniper teams remain the most lethal force on the battlefield and have been credited with many successful engagements. As effective as sniper teams are however, their accuracy is fundamentally limited by random variables such as changing winds, muzzle velocity dispersions and round-to-round variations. The DARPA EXtreme ACcuracy Tasked Ordnance (EXACTO) program aims to maximize the effectiveness of sniper teams while improving their safety. Through EXACTO, DARPA is developing a guided round capability in a .50 caliber platform. It is currently intended to provide snipers the capability to engage targets moving at much greater speeds, in tougher environmental conditions such as...

HERNE, Germany (KABC) -- It took a man in Germany five years to realize he was walking around with a bullet lodged in his head. Robert Chojecki, 35, is recovering from surgery to remove it. Police say he was hit by the stray 22-caliber bullet during a New Year's Eve celebration. Chojecki says he thought he had bumped his head or was hurt by a firecracker. He says he began to get headaches a year ago, and only went to the doctor recently. Since the bullet had not penetrated his skull, doctors say it was not life-threatening and that he...

SACRAMENTO, - A civilian police clerk in Sacramento, Calif., was injured Thursday when she dropped an evidence envelope and a bullet inside exploded. The clerk was hit in the right leg by fragments from the casing, the Sacramento Bee reported. A police spokesman said the bullet was not in a weapon but was loose. She was treated for her injuries at the University of California-Davis Medical Center and was expected to recover completely.

For those of you that have not seen it this is a great video of various types of bullets in super slow motion. The techno music is a bit much just turn off the sound and enjoy!

By Elliott Jones Posted June 22, 2010 at 12:19 p.m . STUART — For the second time this year, a pit bull dog in the care of a Stuart woman has attacked another dog in public causing injuries, law enforcement reports show. The woman, Brittany Edwards, 20, of the 1200 block of S.E. Astorwood Place, has been ordered to pay about $3,000 in county fines. She was cited for having an unrestrained dog and for interfering with a county animal control officer. The owner of a golden retriever in the first attack — at Jensen Public Beach on April 7...

The announcement that Helen Thomas has been sent to journalistic Valhalla is good news on several levels. Not only because it at last removes an erratic, out-of-control figure who has represented a political and social embarrassment for decades, but also because it signals that America has once again dodged the anti-Semitism bullet. A country that accepts anti-Semitism is a country on its way to destruction. The historical record could not be clearer on this. Late 19th-century Germany was one of the leading states of the Western world, the heir of Beethoven and Goethe, a standard-setter for the sciences, the humanities,...

It was recently revealed that, last November, a British sniper (corporal Craig Harrison) set a new distance record when he killed two Taliban in Afghanistan, at a range of 2,620 meters (8,596 feet). He did this with a L115A3 rifle firing the 8.6mm Lapua Magnum round. The previous record was held by a Canadian soldier, corporal Rob Furlong, who dropped an al Qaeda gunman at 2,573 meters (7,972 feet) in 2002, also in Afghanistan. Furlong, however, was using a 12.7mm (.50 caliber) rifle. These weapons are good at 2,000 meters or more, but weigh twice as much as the 6.8...

The spate of kidnappings, assassinations, political murders and general insecurity in the country may have forced politicians, top government officials, wealthy businessmen and other affluent Nigerians into a rush for bullet-proof cars. Latest information released to our correspondent by a top American auto armouring company also revealed that the closeness of the 2011 general election has caused politicians to massively place orders for heavily fortified anti-ballistic vehicles. Following reports that politicians and wealthy Nigerians had expanded the internal security around their residences, particularly in the face of high profile kidnappings, our correspondent made an online enquiry from the Country Representative...

One area of weapons development that has seen a lot of new, but generally unnoticed, developments in the past decade is the PDW (Personal Defense Weapon, or pistol replacement). One recent example is the Rock River Arms PPS (Performance Piston System) Pistol. This is a 5.56mm weapon that uses a new internal design. It has a short gas piston, with the recoil spring and guide rod over the 21cm (8 inch) barrel. The entire weapon (which does not have a stock) is 44.5cm (17.5 inches) long and weighs 2.2 kg (5 pounds). There are single shot and full automatic versions,...

A bullet that hit a window in Republican U.S. Rep. Eric Cantor's office building appears to have been fired randomly into the air, police said Thursday. Cantor announced at a Capitol Hill news conference Thursday that a shot had been fired into his Richmond campaign office. In addressing reporters, he denounced threats and vandalism against Democrats who passed sweeping health care reform legislation that has angered conservatives, but accused senior Democrats of inciting retribution against Republicans. "It is reckless to use these incidents as media vehicles for political gain," Cantor told reporters. Cantor said he receives threats because he is...

Via Notoriously ConservativeI'm a little hesitant to shoot toys at an intruder only to have them return fire with adult bullets. I'll stick with my .45, I think. Lightfield has been selling these projectiles to law enforcement agencies and wildlife officials for years. Each round is filled with a soft projectile that resembles a koosh ball. They look like toys, because they're made by a Chinese toy factory. The best thing about them is that they aren't likely to kill someone even if they are fired at point blank range. They're so soft that they're almost incapable of penetrating the...

A 4-year-old boy attending a New Year's Eve church service with his family was killed when a stray bullet came through the roof, hitting him in the head. The boy, Marquel Peters, was sitting beside his mother in the sanctuary during an intermission, said Lloyd Phipps, senior pastor at the Church of God of Prophecy near Decatur. About 350 people were gathered in the DeKalb County church on Covington Drive, waiting for a concert to begin at 12:30 a.m. Friday, Phipps said. "We heard a loud pop, which we now assume was when the bullet came through the roof," Phipps...

Wednesday gun porn break.

A California nightclub bouncer who fired a gun into the air to break up a fight faces felony charges after the bullet hit a woman a mile away, police say.

Such is the evil of a regime Obama seems reluctant to denounce! Son's Death Has Iranian Family Asking Why By FARNAZ FASSIHI Wall Street Journal JUNE 23, 2009 TEHRAN—The family, clad in black, stood at the curb of the road sobbing. A middle-aged mother slapped her cheeks, letting out piercing wails. The father, a frail man who worked as a doorman at a clinic in central Tehran, wept quietly with his head bowed. Minutes before, an ambulance had arrived from Tehran's morgue carrying the body of their only son, 19-year-old Kaveh Alipour. On Saturday, amid the most violent clashes between...

Tea Parties! All Across the land. Here's my question to the Freepers here who are going to or are supporting the Tea Parties: If a camera and reporter was thrust in your face, and they ask this question, "So, why are you here? what is this Tea Party about?" how would you answer? What would be your set of bullet points you want to tell the local leaders, the local populace and the world?!

   Sales of guns, ammo still high by: KELLY BOSTIAN World Outdoors WriterFriday, March 13, 2009 3/13/2009 11:16:57 AM Correction: This story originally reported the wrong years when comparing the number of permit applications. The cutline incorrectly identified the .40 and .45 caliber bullets. The story and cutline have been corrected. Related Story: Liberals told to leave: An instructor for a hunter safety course orders Obama voters to get out of his class. Four months after the election of President Barack Obama, firearms and ammunition sales in Tulsa remain at a fever pitch. Popular self-protection ammunition is often sold...

Letter and bullet received 'threatening Nicolas Sarkozy's life' A French senator said Friday that he received a letter threatening his life and that of President Nicolas Sarkozy. The envelope also contained a bullet, Sen Jacques Blanc said. Last Updated: 8:28AM GMT 28 Feb 2009 He was the second senator to receive a death threat this month. State prosecutor Rene Pagis said antiterrorist officers are investigating. Mr Blanc, of the governing UMP party, told The Associated Press the letter also threatened government ministers, but he did not provide details. Mr Blanc said he was travelling when the letter arrived at his...

Police Chief Kenneth Ray said he never would have believed it if he hadn't seen it: A murder suspect was shot in the head by police, and the bullet bounced off the man's skull. That considered, 32-year-old Daniel Tice was lucky to be in a hospital room Friday. But he still must face charges stemming from a seven-hour standoff Thursday night in which his estranged wife was killed.

Driving his John Deere tractor Saturday, Richard was suddenly thumped with a pain “like a hard punch jumped up” and bit him in the heart. He bent over and grasped his sweater. Then he took it off to get a closer look. A .45-caliber bullet casing tumbled out, clattered onto the tractor and fell on the ground. He’d just been shot. It was a stray bullet, and it tore through his sweater, leaving a 1/2-inch hole, where it entered into the top center pocket of his coveralls and hit his cell phone. The bullet, coming in at a 45-degree angle,...

McCain won the election despite the hoopla from the MSM. We can not rest on our laurels now. We should continue to investigate Obama. After all, he is still a U.S. Senator, and will probably run again. Of all the rumors that were posted, 80% have been proven. There are still 20% left unvetted by us. The MSM is now completely focused on Todd Palin and his mother Blanche (Roberts) Kallstrom. We cannot and should not expect the NY Times, ABC, NBC, et al to bother with traditional investigative journalism. We need to be the investigator and dig this stuff...

A new bullet-tagging technology being developed in the UK could give forensic teams a robust new tool in the fight against gun crime. The breakthrough has been achieved by a multidisciplinary team from Brighton, Brunel, Cranfield, Surrey and York universities, with funding from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC). Project partners include the Forensic Science Service, BAE Systems and coatings manufacturer Andura. The tags, which measure 30 microns in diameter, are applied to gun cartridges by being embedded in cartridge coatings made from polylactic acid, sucrose ester and tetrahydrofuran. They then attach themselves to the hands or gloves...

A British soldier told yesterday how he survived after a Taliban sniper’s bullet passed through his brain. Sergeant Alistair McKinney of the 1st Battalion Royal Irish Regiment said the bullet entered his head above his left eye, went through his brain and exited his skull above his right ear. Sgt McKinney, 36, was hit by sniper fire from hills as he patrolled the perimeter fence of his base at Musa Qala, Afghanistan in August 2005. He has no recollection of the shooting. He said: “The bullet smashed my forehead just above the left eye, went through part of my brain...

GRETNA, La. - Celebrated chef Paul Prudhomme was setting up his cooking tent on the practice range at the Zurich Classic of New Orleans on Tuesday morning when he felt a sting in his right arm, just above his elbow. Prudhomme shook his shirt sleeve and a .22 caliber bullet fell to the ground, a spokesman for the Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Office said. Deputies believe Prudhomme was hit by a falling bullet, probably shot about 9:30 a.m. from somewhere within a 1 1/2-mile radius of the golf course, said Col. John Fortunato. Prudhomme did not require medical attention. "He thought...

An RCMP sniper fires at Darren Shulte's non-ceramic bullet-proof vest to see if it can withstand the shots. Darren Shulte of St. Albert, Alta., created the plate five years ago for a junior high school science fair. Defence Minister Peter MacKay speaks with Shulte while looking over his plate on Saturday, Nov. 24, 2007. CTV.ca News Staff   Updated: Sun. Dec. 2 2007 7:28 AM ET RCMP snipers took aim at Darren Shulte's Grade 9 science project this week, firing at his non-ceramic bullet-proof plate to see if it could save lives. Shulte, of St. Albert, Alta., created the plate...

Man Coughs Up Bullet, Avoids Paralysis Projectile Was Lodged Near Man's Spine POSTED: 7:08 am PDT October 12, 2007 UPDATED: 7:13 am PDT October 12, 2007 LIBERTY LAKE, Wash. -- A 19-year-old shooting victim in Washington state was spared paralysis after he coughed up the bullet that was stuck near his spine. Austin Askins was shot in the mouth by a stranger over Labor Day weekend, authorities said. The bullet was lodged near his spine and doctors said they wouldn't be able to remove it. However, Askins was having trouble breathing and swallowing after the shooting. He was on his...

AL FAYIL, Iraq (Oct. 6, 2007) -- Whenever coalition forces drive into a village children come running, screaming and waving. “Mista, mista, you give me futbol,” or “Mista, please, chocolate, give me,” are the most common phrases used by Iraqi children. As soon as the trucks stop they are engulfed by a frenzy of children, resembling an ice cream truck on a hot summer day. But recently, Marines brought more than soccer balls and candy to this small farming community; they brought home a child wounded by war. He is thirteen and shy. His black hair is short and his...

FORT COLLINS, Colo., Aug. 13, 2007 – Army Staff Sgt. Matthew Keil volunteered for his first tour in Iraq. Army Staff Sgt. Matthew Keil and his wife, Tracy, were the guests of honor at American Military Family's "Hoedown for Heroes" tribute event held at the Larimer (Colo.) County Fairgrounds on Aug. 11, 2007. While he was on a second tour in Iraq, Matt was hit by a sniper's bullet, which left him a quadriplegic. Photo by Samantha L. Quigley  (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. His decision had less to do with making sure he was in the thick...

WASHINGTON: The musket blast was sudden and deadly, the killing nearly 500 years ago of what may have been the first gunshot victim in the Western Hemisphere. "We didn't expect it. We saw this skull and saw the almost round hole and thought people must have been shooting around here recently," said Guillermo Cock, an archaeologist who found the remains near Lima, Peru. But he realised that the skull was ancient, and a recent bullet strike would simply have shattered it, Cock said. The skull was found among a large group of bones of ancient Incas, who had died violently...

SHANGHAI, China (AP) - Chinese doctors have removed a three-centimetre-long bullet from a woman's skull - 64 years after she was shot by Japanese Imperial Army troops, a newspaper reported Tuesday. Jin Guangying, 77, left hospital on May 3 and is reportedly in good condition following the four-hour operation, the Shanghai Daily said. "It's a miracle," Zhou Hong, the head of surgery at Renci Hospital in Jin's native province of Jiangsu, was quoted as saying.

Our solar system flies through space in the shape of a speeding bullet, according to data from NASA's two Voyager spacecraft. The sun and its planets are known to streak through the void of space at approximately 62,000 miles (100,000 kilometers) an hour. The system travels within a bubble of solar wind—made of charged particles from the sun—called the heliosphere. The edge of this bubble collides with the Milky Way galaxy's magnetic field at a distance some 200 times farther from the sun than Earth is. A research team led by Merav Opher at Virginia's George Mason University found that,...

A jeweller shot in the chest during an armed robbery escaped injury because the bullet hit his mobile phone, a court heard yesterday. Shop manager Darren Prior, 25, was chasing the raider who had looted his shop of diamond rings worth £50,000. Despite the raider firing a "warning shot" past him, Mr Prior continued the pursuit down an alleyway, where the gunman suddenly stopped and turned before firing at him from just 20 feet away. Store manager Darren Prior was shot during an armed robbery, but escaped injury because the bullet hit his mobile phone

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- A 54-year-old Florida man credits two small Bibles in his shirt pocket with saving his life when they stopped a bullet. The man, whose name was withheld because his attackers are still at large, told Orange Park police that two men he didn't recognize ambushed him with a rifle as he carried bags of garbage to a trash bin. He said his attackers then fled in opposite directions. The man said the bullet was stopped by two New Testaments that he was carrying in his shirt pocket to give to friends. Police took them as evidence. The...

WASHINGTON, Sept. 7, 2006 – DoD is spending almost $3.5 billion this year to defeat improvised explosive devices, and the effort’s leader today said he expects the same level of funding in fiscal 2007. Retired Army Gen. Montgomery C. Meigs said the Joint IED Defeat Organization is using an all-encompassing approach to counter the threat of IEDs, terrorists’ main weapon in attacks against coalition forces and civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan. In Iraq alone, IEDs have killed almost 1,000 servicemembers. There is no “silver bullet” solution to the leading cause of death for coalition troops, Meigs told media during a...

Explaining the monumental failure of the Soviet system and empire, Gen. Dmitri Volkogonov, a former official Soviet military historian, stressed that "the roots of the catastrophe lay in the ideology itself, in Leninism." All told, the "catastrophe" of attempting to impose a Marxist-Leninist utopia in the Soviet Union resulted in the deaths of as many as 25 million people, according to recently released and hitherto inaccessible Soviet archives -- a death toll that was the direct consequence of centrally planned massacres, mass deportations, labor camps, torture and famine. ... Within months of his rise to power, Lenin provided the definition...

NEW YORK--New York State Comptroller Alan Hevesi is in hot water for making remarks about "putting a bullet between the president's eyes" a day after promising that fellow democrats would “murder” republicans.According to WNBC, Hevesi, a democrat, was speaking at the Queens College commencement at the time of the remarks, along with U.S. Senator Charles “Chuck” Schumer.A member of the audience, blogging at Free Republic, reports that Hevesi, referring to Schumer, said the Senator would "put a bullet between the President's eyes if he could get away with it." There were a fair number of gasps…It slightly seemed that he...

BUHRIZ, Iraq (May 1, 2006) – Capt. John McFarlin owes his life to the Army Combat Helmet. While McFarlin’s unit recently responded to attacks on an Iraqi police station in Buhriz, he was hit in the helmet with a shot from an AK-47. “I was suppressed for a moment and then I got back up" and returned fire, said McFarlin of the 3rd Heavy Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division, Task Force Band of Brothers’ Military Transition Team who oversees the 2nd Brigade, 5th Iraqi Army Division. A day after the attack, McFarlin was still sporting the damaged helmet. He...

Two Community High students accused of bringing a gun to the school and making threats Wednesday appeared in Juvenile Court before Judge Charles Rich on Thursday morning. The boys, ages 15 and 13, are each charged with possession of a gun on school property, reckless endangerment and unlawful possession of a weapon, sources said. They are being held in detention before another court appearance Monday. The 13-year-old brought a derringer, allegedly owned by his parents, to the school and showed it to the 15-year-old, sources said. Both boys, who are not brothers, started showing the gun to other students, according...

16-year-old strikes .45-caliber slug he found in back yard. --- Lake Worth · A 16-year-old boy who found a bullet in his back yard on Friday ended up shooting himself, Lake Worth police said. Jose Delgado played with the .45-caliber bullet shortly before noon at his house in the 1400 block of Tropical Drive in Lake Worth before using a hammer and screwdriver to hit the back of the bullet. The bullet fired and hit him in the abdomen, police said. An officer kept pressure on Delgado's wound until paramedics arrived and took the boy to Delray Medical Center,...

LOS ANGELES (AP) - Buoyed by a come-from-behind victory over a ballot initiative that threatened labor's powerful role in state politics, union leaders said Wednesday their next move is to defeat Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's re-election bid. "In the coming days and weeks, working families are going to begin our efforts to ensure that in California we elect a Legislature and a governor that will fight for the interest of working families," said Martin Ludlow, executive secretary-treasurer of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor. Proposition 75, which would have required public employee unions to get permission from members annually before...

CAMP AL QA’IM, Iraq (Nov. 2, 2005) -- The 3rd Mobile Assault Platoon took sniper fire all day as they conducted a relief in place with 1st Mobile Assault Platoon. As Lacey Springs, Ala., native Lance Cpl. Bradley A. Snipes, antitank assault man, 3rd MAP, Weapons Company, 3rd Battalion, 6th Marine Regiment, sat in the turret of his hummer watching his assigned sector behind his M-2 .50 caliber machine gun, it happened. “We were doing a relief in place with [1st MAP] and had been taking sniper fire across the wadi all day,” Snipes, the 21-year-old, 2002 graduate of Brewer...

After a Michigan City middle school student found a bullet on-board his bus, he thought he might get a thank you. Instead, Henry Hernandez’s family says he was nearly kicked out of school.