Big news in the sporting world today. ATK, which already owns large swath of the outdoor industry’s leading ammunition and shooting accessories brands, has announced that it is acquiring the company that owns Savage Sports Corporation for $315 million in cash. This purchase is ATK’s first foray into firearms production.

The name of the company being purchased is Caliber Company, which is the parent of Savage Arms, Bowtech and other brands in the hunting and shooting world—though the deal only includes the Savage and Stevens firearms brands and Savage Range Systems and does not include the archery company Bowtech. According to ATK, the purchase should be finalized prior to June 30, 2013.

Two reports confirm one set of facts: Gun violence has dropped dramatically nationwide over the past two decades, but the impression people get from the mainstream media and anti-gun lobbyists is "gun crime" is out of control.
               
The Justice Department's Bureau of Justice Statistics on May 7 released a report documenting a 39 percent decline in firearms-related homicides between 1993 and 2011, as well as a 69 percent drop-off in non-fatal crimes with firearms.
               
Another interesting stat from the Justice Department study: Less than 1 percent of state prison inmates who possessed a gun when they committed their offense obtained the firearm at a gun show.

David Lewis, 35, is a college librarian who lives in Amherst, N.Y., not far from Buffalo. He is a licensed pistol-owner who enjoys target-shooting. He has no criminal record and has never issued threats or done anything that would cause concern about his access to a firearm.
               
Although there is no evidence of any mental instability, for a short time, Lewis was taking anti-anxiety medicine. And that, apparently, was enough for anti-gun zealots in Erie County to use New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s newly adopted SAFE Act to pull his pistol permit and demand his firearms be confiscated.
               
New York's gun control measure adopted in January includes a provision requiring mental health professionals to alert authorities when a gun owner might be a danger to himself/herself and others.

Test protocol includes three distinct, but overlapping, phases. Before a single shell or cartridge is loaded, each firearm is inspected, measured, weighed, cleaned if necessary, and in the case of the rifles, scoped up. This time-consuming process is what we use to build the data sheets provided to each tester, which list all the vital statistics about the firearm. We’re so picky during this process that we even assign number grades to reflect the quality of the machining on the bore and rifling, for instance. Suffice it to say there’s no nook or cranny on these rifles and shotguns, all of which are field-stripped and disassembled, that isn’t inspected.