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September 28, 2009 by
The ten-month surge in the sale of firearms and the accompanying increase in applications for concealed carry permits in the U.S. have been well documented by the pro-gun media. But a relatively under-reported related gun-sales story has everything to do with sex.
Did that get your attention?
By all accounts, women are buying guns for personal protection like never before and seeking firearms training and education in increasing numbers.
Last week it was reported that in 2009 nearly 12,000 new pistol permits were issued in Connecticut, a state with one of the historically lowest gun-ownership rates in the country. Between January and May the state saw a 90 percent increase in the number of pistol permits over the previous year, with retailers and safety instructors reporting a spike in first-time gun purchases, particularly by women.
“I think that the percentage that you’d see of women coming for the first time has quadrupled,” John Petricone, a staffer at Tactical Arms in Torrington, told the Danbury Republican-American. Pistol safety classes that once drew about nine men for every woman are now evenly split, Petricone said.
That contention was all but confirmed by survey results released this week from the National Shooting Sports Foundation’s “First Shots” program.
“First Shots” is just what the name implies: a program that introduces people to handgun shooting for their first time—along with expert coaching and safety instruction.
Of the 3,106 participant surveys tabulated from handgun events as of this June, a total of 1,498 participants (48 percent) identified themselves as female. In addition, 64 percent of the female participants indicated the First Shots seminar marked their first-ever experience shooting a handgun.
In a follow-up survey conducted six months after attending the seminar, 20 percent of the female participants said they went on to take formal handgun training such as basic handgun, concealed carry, defensive handgun, NRA safety instruction and other formal programs. Further, nearly half of the responding female First Shots participants reported to have met their state’s requirement to own or purchase a handgun.
[ Read Full Post ] September 21, 2009 by
The results of a groundbreaking new study indicate that chronic wasting disease (CWD) in deer and elk may be spread by excreted proteins found in the infected animal’s feces.
The report, published in the September 9 issue of the journal Nature reveals that CWD-symptomatic prions (or modified proteins) are found in the droppings of deer months before clinical symptoms of the disease are seen in the animals, according to the research team, at University of California, San Francisco and the Colorado Division of Wildlife’s Wildlife Research Center.
Deer, elk and moose inadvertently consume feces and soil in the course of their daily grazing. Given this, the team set out to determine whether the animals could develop CWD through long-term consumption of contaminated feces.
Researchers measured the amount of prions contained in the feces of orally infected deer up until the time they became symptomatic and then calculated whether prolonged exposure to the concentrations of prions in these feces would be enough to cause the disease.
“Our findings suggest that prolonged fecal prion excretion by infected deer provides a plausible explanation for the high level of transmission of chronic wasting disease within deer herds, as well as prion transmission among deer and other cervid species. Our work may also explain transmission of scrapie prions among sheep and goats,” says senior author and Nobel laureate Stanley B. Prusiner, MD, UCSF professor of neurology and director of the UCSF Institute for Neurodegenerative Diseases.
[ Read Full Post ] September 11, 2009 by
It was a Tuesday morning, and for the first few hours of it, what distinguished it from all other late-summer Tuesday mornings was the weather. If you hunt, you know what I mean. It was the day when summer turned to fall. The cadence of the cicadas slowed with the falling temperatures on the night prior; the morning skies premiered in clear blue; the slight chill gave way to the warmth of the day—and then Osama bin Laden’s henchman, Mohammed Atta, destroyed it all.
At 8:43 a.m. on September 11, 2001, I was waiting for the traffic light to change on 23rd St. and Madison Ave. when Atta hit the throttles on American Airlines Flight 11 out of Boston and powered it into the north tower of the World Trade Center. I know because I heard and watched it happen. All of it—the sirens, the fire, the second plane, the building disintegrations— everything. My friends perished in the building, one of my buddies from my deer hunting club is a fireman; his sister, another member of my hunting club, worked for the medical examiner’s office. I prayed for them.
Eight years later, the memories remain vivid. The only salve for that horrible Tuesday morning was the Saturday after when I got into the woods and began to heal, albeit just a bit. I have not healed—likely never will. I will also never forget, nor should any of us. Remember where you were on 9/11? Please share your thoughts on this most memorable of all days.
[ Read Full Post ] September 9, 2009 by
A fascinating new scientific study dispels a widely held assumption among hunters and biologists alike that older, dominant male whitetail deer generally prevail in the breeding process and contribute overwhelmingly to any given herd’s overall genetics.
The study, appearing in the August issue of the Journal of Mammology, reveals that bucks of all ages and maturity generally have an equal chance at breeding.
“Male reproductive success was distributed among a large number of males in all populations, with no evidence for highly skewed access to mating for any individual male,” according to the article’s outline abstract.
Six researchers led by Randy DeYoung of Mississippi State University studied deer in three diverse locations: Noxubee National Wildlife Refuge in Mississippi, the King Ranch in Texas and the Noble Foundation Wildlife Unit in Oklahoma.
The DNA-based research performed on a total of 1,219 deer found that 1- to 2-year-old bucks sired a third of the fawns, despite the presence of more mature bucks, resulting in the conclusion that social dominance alone may not lead to reproductive success.
“Ecological and behavioral variables appear to constrain the ability of individual males to monopolize access to females, resulting in a wider distribution of reproductive success than expected based on previous ecological and behavioral studies of whitetail deer,” the study concluded.
In addition to disproving the notion that deer reproductive success is highly skewed toward a small number of mature, dominant bucks, DeYoung’s data may potentially refute recent anti-hunting groups’ contentions that trophy hunting negatively impacts the genetics of big game animal herds in North America.
[ Read Full Post ] September 2, 2009 by
St. Louis Cardinals slugger Albert Pujols—who knows a thing or two about hitting and distance—receives some pointers from Special Warfare Operator 1st Class Thompson about the preferred platform for long-distance communication by Navy SEALs. Pujols and All-Star reliever Ryan Franklin were among five Cardinal players who toured the Naval Special Warfare facilities while in San Diego for a series with the Padres August 20-23.
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