WARNING: Graphic Content
TALKING POINTS MEMO: On March 10th, Middlefield, Ohio police made what appeared to be a routine traffic stop of a man who had run a stop sign. But then James Gilkerson emerged from his stopped car firing 37 rounds from an AK-47 rifle. Amazingly the two officers in the cruiser sustained only relatively minor injuries and fired off 54 rounds of their own, eventually killing Gilkerson. You can see the shocking and somewhat disturbing dash-cam video released by local police just this weekend here. Perhaps not surprisingly, in Gilkerson’s car police found eight 40-round magazines for the AK-47 and a bunch of militia and terrorist related literature.The Cleveland Plain Dealer released photographs of the different books and pamphlets. And here’s where it gets even more interesting and, yes, more disturbing. TPM Reader JL notes that the 7th slide in the slideshow shows what appears to be a course manual for the Fighting Rifle course taught by a Tennessee outfit called Tactical Response. Now, ring a bell? Well, remember back not long after the Newtown massacre, a crazy gun guy down in Tennessee who was the CEO of a ‘tactical’ firearms training operation said he was “gonna start killing people” if President Obama issued an executive order on guns. Well, that was James Yeager, CEO of, yep, Tactical Response. If you don’t remember, here’s the initial video. MORE
RELATED: Television and radio host Glenn Beck warned NRA members that the “freedom of all mankind is at stake” and the “right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.” “They want to fundamentally transform our country and they’ve just about finished the project,” Beck told an audience of thousands Saturday evening at the NRA convention‘s Stand and Fight Rally in Houston, Texas. “They feel they must regulate us until we comply, but I will not comply.” […] Wayne LaPierre, the group’s executive vice president and face of the organization, focused the fight on President Obama saying “there is nothing the president will not do to get something, anything, through Congress to advance his agenda to destroy the Second Amendment. Nothing.” “So far, thanks to you and millions of Americans like you, that’s exactly what President Obama has gotten — absolutely nothing,” LaPierre said. He said the failed background checks vote was “significant,” but warned it was only “one skirmish in what can only be defined as a long war against our constitutional rights.”MORE
TALKING POINTS MEMO: At its convention in Houston, over the weekend, the National Rifle Association asked a vendor to take down a mannequin target that looked like President Barack Obama, Buzzfeed reported on Sunday. The vendor, Zombie Industries, produces “life-sized tactical mannequin” targets that “bleed” when shot. Photographs of the company’s booth at the convention taken by Buzzfeed show that the company had several sample mannequins displayed for sale, including a clown, a “terrorist,” and a Nazi. “Someone from the NRA came by and asked us to remove it” a Zombie Industries booth worker told BuzzFeed, referring to the company’s “Bleeding Rocky Zombie” target. “They thought it looked too much like President Obama.” Buzzfeed asked the worker if the resemblance was intentional. “Let’s just say I gave my Republican father one for Christmas,” the worker replied. MORE
RELATED: In addition to making a mannequin target that looks like President Barack Obama, Zombie Industries sells a mannequin called simply “The Ex” — a large-breasted dummy that “bleeds” when shot. At the National Rifle Association convention in Houston over the weekend, Zombie Industries, the maker of “life-sized tactical mannequin” targets, was asked to take down its “Bleeding Rocky Zombie” from its booth. A company worker told Buzzfeed the mannequin was pulled for looking too much like Obama. Other mannequins made by Zombie Industries include a clown, a terrorist, and a Nazi. The only female target appears to be “The Ex,” which sells for $99.95. “In addition to the Ex Girlfriend Zombie, we currently sell 15 male zombies, 5 animal zombies & 2 aliens… to discriminate against Women by not having them represented in our product selection would be just plain sexist,” the company states on its website. MORE
