Connecticut Elementary School Massacre

[Crow]

There was much more mainstream curiosity about James Holmes. It seems like Adam Lanza and his motivations are going down the memory hole extra-early.

[divideandconquer]

I've been working on the possibility of a black ops group perpetrating a bunch of these mass shootings. From our knowledge of MKULTRA we have MKOFTEN, for example, and this quote from Wikipedia page: 'According to author Gordon Thomas' 2007 book, Secrets and Lies, the CIA's Operation Often was also initiated by the chief of the CIA's Technical Services Branch, Dr. Sidney Gottlieb, to "explore the world of black magic" and "harness the forces of darkness and challenge the concept that the inner reaches of the mind are beyond reach". As part of Operation Often, Dr. Gottlieb and other CIA employees visited with and recruited fortune-tellers, palm-readers, clairvoyants, astrologists, mediums, psychics, specialists in demonology, witches and warlocks, Satanists, other occult practitioners, and more.' Plus in 1977 Senate hearings, and in the list of subprojects at http://all.net/journal/deception/MKULTRA/www.nemasys.com/rahome/library/programming/mkultra.shtml, we hear talk of some very, very strange things. Many have intimated that such work never ceased, and even the limited hangout, like Abu Ghraib, is scary enough. Parallel, we have the Phoenix Program and Operation Condor, for example, where CIA is deeply involved in mass murder of civilians, at least in other countries. Then, even more disturbing, are the Brabant massacres, which most closely approach more recent US and European school shootings, but without patsies: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brabant_killers. Goes on to talk about motives, 'The Brabant killers were mentioned as linked to the neo-Nazi organization Westland New Post (WNP), which aimed to destabilize Belgian society and provoke civil unrest in order "to establish a government lead by ultra-conservatives of the Parti Social-Chrétien".' And so on into pink ballets, Dutroux connections and etc.

I'm just trying to say that within the purview of the funding of waived USAPS, buried deep enough, and well inside the private sector for even more protection, (but, no doubt, with our tax dollars) we have all the precedents for inclusions of the occult, brainwashing of patsies, and savage black ops militants who would not hesitate to kill schoolchildren or anyone else (or help bring down the Towers). The issue is the furtherance of an extreme Right agenda, worldwide Nazi police state, I suppose. It would seem that IF such deep, deep black USAPS exist, they would consist of a series of massacres linked by a common theme. Obviously this is pure speculation, but a black op doing Sandy-linked school shootings, backed presumably by some Gottlieb-type evil scientist, might get a kick out of embedding Batman references and using the movie to progsram patsies. I commented on another thread about the Sandy and Cassandra connections throughout these shootings, whether through names of featured victims' families or geographic localities, and usually the latter. I could imagine some type of Operation Cassandra that has nothing to do, essentially with gun control--this simply provides a cover story or diversion tactic for the true goal, which is continuing to usher in the police state.

In my mind I have the names of people and their connections, and it seems to me that between 9-11, Iran-Contra, a possible black ops Brabant group for mass shootings (the Giant, the Killer, and the Old Man), and etc., we really wouldn't need a very big group at all. Sometimes it seems that way, and then at other times it seems we would need a relatively large infrastructure. But I have come around to the firm belief that a single black op could be responsible at least for the shootings of the last two years.

My main question is how the f-- other shooters, or the real shooters, two or three at most, could possibly keep getting away. Fusion centers might provide the key--presumably CIA and other groups already deeply embedded in police infrastructure in places where massacres occur, just like they are in NYPD. Something like that in Aurora, and Connecticut wouldn't be that difficult.

I agree that it has all the markings of a black op. Never mind getting all caught up in the strange and increasingly contradictory reports and details (that's what they want). Just the fact that the powers that be and their puppets-- the mainstream media-- not only perpetuate these egregious contradictions, and absurdities, but in addition, fail to clear things up, while threatening those who speak out against the official story, should be enough to convince anyone paying attention to know this is a black op, most likely orchestrated from the establishment, and not just some rogue splinter group. I'm not saying that every member of the establishment is in the know. They're not. BUT that there are strategically placed people in every agency who is in the know to one degree or another. I'm sure that only a very select few are aware of the big picture.

As for killing more than a few birds with one stone, it certainly does that. It increases gun sales, while at the same time, advocates for gun control. It benefits the security/surveillance industry complex by convincing people to beg for more "big brother", which means more profit for that growing industry. And, in my opinion, the biggest reason of all: instilling fear of the state in the hearts of all Americans, because even if you don't admit this didn't go down as reported, somewhere, deep down you know these mass shooting events go beyond the lone crazed gunman.

geogeo's right. The main agenda is to implement a global police state, a new world order. The bottom line is that, unbeknownst to most, the Nazis won the war. They're covertly controlling things and the scary part is that they're not even trying to hide their egregious behavior anymore...for those with eyes to see, which, because of the Internet, is growing everyday. Forget gun control. They don't care about that because they know it's too late for the people to rise up. They have the technology to crush us all in a heartbeat if they so desire.

[JackRiddler]

Thank you Willow. While I resist the tendency to turn each of these events into a public hysteria, I think there are important things we can learn from them, and you are headed there. This violence is the old violence. That doesn't mean there aren't specific contemporary social factors that set off new forms of it today, and drugs and conditioning backgrounds are among the possibilities.

I understand that speculation, even ridiculous kinds of it, is a necessity to what this board does. If there's an MK or deep-state story to some of the cases (and the DC sniper case would also be my first choice), still I don't see the point of all these posts here trying to do ballistics by reading text from news reports (not even photos!).

Here are two facts: Other than the target, the odds of hitting any given thing with a bullet are small; and yet almost every bullet that is fired hits something other than, or in addition to, the target. Amazing, isn't it?

[Elihu]

I've been working on the possibility of a black ops group perpetrating a bunch of these mass shootings. From our knowledge of MKULTRA we have MKOFTEN, for example, and this quote from Wikipedia page: 'According to author Gordon Thomas' 2007 book, Secrets and Lies, the CIA's Operation Often was also initiated by the chief of the CIA's Technical Services Branch, Dr. Sidney Gottlieb, to "explore the world of black magic" and "harness the forces of darkness and challenge the concept that the inner reaches of the mind are beyond reach". As part of Operation Often, Dr. Gottlieb and other CIA employees visited with and recruited fortune-tellers, palm-readers, clairvoyants, astrologists, mediums, psychics, specialists in demonology, witches and warlocks, Satanists, other occult practitioners, and more.' Plus in 1977 Senate hearings, and in the list of subprojects at http://all.net/journal/deception/MKULTRA/www.nemasys.com/rahome/library/programming/mkultra.shtml, we hear talk of some very, very strange things. Many have intimated that such work never ceased, and even the limited hangout, like Abu Ghraib, is scary enough. Parallel, we have the Phoenix Program and Operation Condor, for example, where CIA is deeply involved in mass murder of civilians, at least in other countries. Then, even more disturbing, are the Brabant massacres, which most closely approach more recent US and European school shootings, but without patsies: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brabant_killers. Goes on to talk about motives, 'The Brabant killers were mentioned as linked to the neo-Nazi organization Westland New Post (WNP), which aimed to destabilize Belgian society and provoke civil unrest in order "to establish a government lead by ultra-conservatives of the Parti Social-Chrétien".' And so on into pink ballets, Dutroux connections and etc.

I'm just trying to say that within the purview of the funding of waived USAPS, buried deep enough, and well inside the private sector for even more protection, (but, no doubt, with our tax dollars) we have all the precedents for inclusions of the occult, brainwashing of patsies, and savage black ops militants who would not hesitate to kill schoolchildren or anyone else (or help bring down the Towers). The issue is the furtherance of an extreme Right agenda, worldwide Nazi police state, I suppose. It would seem that IF such deep, deep black USAPS exist, they would consist of a series of massacres linked by a common theme. Obviously this is pure speculation, but a black op doing Sandy-linked school shootings, backed presumably by some Gottlieb-type evil scientist, might get a kick out of embedding Batman references and using the movie to progsram patsies. I commented on another thread about the Sandy and Cassandra connections throughout these shootings, whether through names of featured victims' families or geographic localities, and usually the latter. I could imagine some type of Operation Cassandra that has nothing to do, essentially with gun control--this simply provides a cover story or diversion tactic for the true goal, which is continuing to usher in the police state.

In my mind I have the names of people and their connections, and it seems to me that between 9-11, Iran-Contra, a possible black ops Brabant group for mass shootings (the Giant, the Killer, and the Old Man), and etc., we really wouldn't need a very big group at all. Sometimes it seems that way, and then at other times it seems we would need a relatively large infrastructure. But I have come around to the firm belief that a single black op could be responsible at least for the shootings of the last two years.

My main question is how the f-- other shooters, or the real shooters, two or three at most, could possibly keep getting away. Fusion centers might provide the key--presumably CIA and other groups already deeply embedded in police infrastructure in places where massacres occur, just like they are in NYPD. Something like that in Aurora, and Connecticut wouldn't be that difficult.

I agree that it has all the markings of a black op. Never mind getting all caught up in the strange and increasingly contradictory reports and details (that's what they want). Just the fact that the powers that be and their puppets-- the mainstream media-- not only perpetuate these egregious contradictions, and absurdities, but in addition, fail to clear things up, while threatening those who speak out against the official story, should be enough to convince anyone paying attention to know this is a black op, most likely orchestrated from the establishment, and not just some rogue splinter group. I'm not saying that every member of the establishment is in the know. They're not. BUT that there are strategically placed people in every agency who is in the know to one degree or another. I'm sure that only a very select few are aware of the big picture.

As for killing more than a few birds with one stone, it certainly does that. It increases gun sales, while at the same time, advocates for gun control. It benefits the security/surveillance industry complex by convincing people to beg for more "big brother", which means more profit for that growing industry. And, in my opinion, the biggest reason of all: instilling fear of the state in the hearts of all Americans, because even if you don't admit this didn't go down as reported, somewhere, deep down you know these mass shooting events go beyond the lone crazed gunman.

geogeo's right. The main agenda is to implement a global police state, a new world order. The bottom line is that, unbeknownst to most, the Nazis won the war. They're covertly controlling things and the scary part is that they're not even trying to hide their egregious behavior anymore...for those with eyes to see, which, because of the Internet, is growing everyday. Forget gun control. They don't care about that because they know it's too late for the people to rise up. They have the technology to crush us all in a heartbeat if they so desire.

that was a good post. both of em actually. imo. welcome d&c. after perusing a different thread and viewing that great vid posted by Mim i think it was(and also by chump in this thread), three words came to mind: moon landing set. would it be possible to blow the whistle on something like that? how? via what info vectors? how would it sound? would it, could it be believed? i guess the corollary point is the important one: the audience (the plebiscite) is precluded from formally drawing any conclusions other than what spews out of the MSM. this is important because the legally constituted authorities and the MSM march in lockstep and daily legitimize each other. the medium is the message and truth is statistical. we're there. perhaps we never left...

[DrVolin]

I have trouble imagining even the P2 strategy of tension crowd perpetrating something like Beslan, Utoya, or Newtown. I can see 9/11, maybe even Virginia Tech or the Olympic park bomber, and definitely the DC Sniper. Don't forget that the people you are talking about actually see themselves as patriots and the last line of defence against barbarism. Sure they are stone cold killers, and they don't hesitate to blow up a popular disco in germany or a wedding party in Waziristan, women, children and all. But a roomfull of toddlers in Connecticut, that's a different story. Incredibly, they see the drone attacks as they saw thousand bomber raids on Dresden or Tokyo: justifiable. I marvel at their reasoning, on both counts, but at least I can apprehend it. I can't even begin to imagine them having the same reasoning about Newtown.

Then there is the question of motive. I don't really see a bunch of Smith and Wesson stockholders (down 6% since december 14th, just for the record), consipiring to drive up their portfolio by executing by proxy a group of children. I can't quite picture a cabal of NWO type MIC honchos and their Xe badge wearing lackeys thinking this one up for the sake of instilling fear of the state. Actually, I can see them thinking it up. But not executing it. The moral cost here, to any but the most mentally abnormal characters, meaning many, many standard deviations away from the mean, is simply too high in comparison to any potential payoff.

A MK weapon gone out of control, I could see. There is no difference in horror and certainly no difference in responsibility, but there is a difference in intentionality and the mechanism is very different. Sadly, the simplest explanation is unaided mental illness. Which does not mean it is the correct one. But in the absence of clear evidence to the contrary, it is sufficient.

[82_28]

Yet, DrVolin, if you wanted to damage normal human goodwill on a more effective existential level/levels, emotionally pliable levels for future "use" this kind of shit does the trick. And if not that, I would imagine it is "desirable" to have a culture with loose cannon lunatics as well for the purposes of social control that can be seized upon. Shit like this, like 9/11 causes everyone who's anyone to pause what they are doing and "download the latest update". Tabula Rasa.

Baudrillard said that 9/11 created a "blank slate" upon which a new history could be written. This could be the work of "black ops". These Jedi mind tricks don't work on me, but they do make me more sad about the state of affairs -- which, could of course be the point or the intended point brought on by a deeper seated subconscious grasp on what the human condition is. Anytime I am made to feel something I was just getting used to and am jolted out of it via mass media it makes me put my creative feelers out, because the Double Bind works like that. If you feel different, that means something became different, without your consent. This is how we are controlled.

[lupercal]

I have trouble imagining even the P2 strategy of tension crowd perpetrating something like Beslan, Utoya, or Newtown. I can see 9/11, maybe even Virginia Tech or the Olympic park bomber, and definitely the DC Sniper. Don't forget that the people you are talking about actually see themselves as patriots and the last line of defence against barbarism. Sure they are stone cold killers, and they don't hesitate to blow up a popular disco in germany or a wedding party in Waziristan, women, children and all. But a roomfull of toddlers in Connecticut, that's a different story. Incredibly, they see the drone attacks as they saw thousand bomber raids on Dresden or Tokyo: justifiable. I marvel at their reasoning, on both counts, but at least I can apprehend it. I can't even begin to imagine them having the same reasoning about Newtown.

Not so hard to imagine. School shootings, bombings, and fires are SOP for the false flag crowd. Wombat recently posted a piece on the1927 Bath Consolidated School bombing in Bath, Michigan, that killed 38 elementary school children and six adults back on page 7 of this thread, link here: viewtopic.php?f=8&t=35841&p=486256

Andrew Kehoe. . . . was a Michigan native and local school board treasurer, a perfectly unremarkable man who killed 44 people on the morning of May 18th, 1927.

Oklahoma City was basically a kindergarten hit, and one of my first posts here was a CT analysis of a well known1958 parochial school fire in Chicago that killed 95, link here: http://www.rigorousintuition.ca/board2/ ... 9&p=271799

Trust the spooks to come up with something truly evil: they started a fire in a packed elementary school and incinerated 92 students and three teachers on live TV. Thus on December 1, 1958, the notorious Our Lady of the Angels fire in Chicago broke out at 2:30, half an hour before dismissal, and spread with frightening speed, completely unnoticed, until students in second floor classrooms were suddenly trapped. The roof collapsed at 2:55, 13 minutes after the first call had come in to the Chicago FD from the rectory housekeeper.

Coincidentally, color camera crews were riding with the FD that day and broadcast the whole thing on live TV, and iconic images of grotesque horror, like the one below (yes, the child is dead) appeared on the cover of LIFE magazine and a gazllion other places and are still endlessly looped through the media in anniversary commemorations, fire safety programs and literature, and so on.



The result was a school re-building boom that went on like gangbusters for forty years, creating an insatiable demand for every conceivable asbestos building product, mesothelioma or no. So the actual truth is that 9/11 was not just a New Pearl Harbor, but also a New Our Lady of the Angels fire that once again saved the bacon of the asbestos industry.

If they'd incinerate 92 children to sell asbestos I don't see why they'd hesitate to disappear an indeterminate of children and adults in a cash-strapped school district for the purpose of propping up a profitable sector of a highly profitable and powerful industry. And as in all cases of intel-manufactured mass murder, there are ancillary propaganda and perception management purposes that we can't be expected to fully determine for a few years at least if ever.

[JackRiddler]

I'm with Volin.

[compared2what?]

I don't really see a bunch of Smith and Wesson stockholders (down 6% since december 14th, just for the record), consipiring to drive up their portfolio by executing by proxy a group of children.

Also just for the record, from shortly before Aurora::

U.S. Firearms Industry Today 2012
Industry Enters Golden Era, Firearms Sales Set Records

By Russ Thurman
From The July 2012 Issue Of Shooting Industry

The industry has entered a golden era, a renaissance of gun ownership that transcends a dedicated segment of Americans who consider firearms a natural part of their lives. The remarkable level of firearms sales that are exceeding previous lofty projections go beyond political- or fear-motivated factors.

Yes, those elements are still present, but the dominating factor is a culture revival. Americans have discovered firearms in a way not seen in decades. The American citizenship has got it — gun ownership is OK! Gun ownership has gone mainstream. It’s OK to go out and shoot a gun just to have fun. It’s the fun factor of firearms that has been restored to the culture.

To buy a gun for personal defense — yes, that factor is still very high. Consumers get that; they’re very serious about the protection factor. Concerns about how the present administration, if reelected, will attack firearms — yes, that’s still in play. However, it doesn’t stir the hearts of gun owners like it did in 2008 and 2009, and the “Obama Factor” is not driving most firearm sales today.

Yet, all those firearms purchased after the presidential election of 2008 have played a key role in today’s renaissance. Then, driven by the fear that the new president would ban certain firearms, many seasoned gun owners and even more first-time buyers, swarmed gun stores to purchase firearms, primarily “black rifles.” However, most of those firearms were locked away, untouched, unfired.

No longer. Many of those tens of thousands of firearms are now being used in personal-defense classes, competitions, hunting and everyday plinking. The owners of those firearms have learned to shoot and have discovered a nearly dead cultural phenomenon — it’s fun!

What has driven this “new” discovery?

TV has had a huge impact. Viewers are enjoying many more programs featuring firearms that go beyond hunting. Yet, hunting is enjoying a resurgence, also. Women, whose first firearms were for personal defense, are now hunting, shooting clays, competing — and buying their own firearms, ones they researched on the Internet. Social media has a remarkable impact on today’s acceptance of firearms.

Another major influencing factor of gun ownership is America’s modern military veteran. There are hundreds of thousands of dads, brothers, uncles, wives, sisters, aunts, cousins and extended family and friends, who served or are serving in Iran and Afghanistan. They are respected and admired. They carried firearms to protect our country. That factor, that imagery, has had a huge positive impact on how firearms are viewed in our country.

Even if you took away the continuing Obama Factor — fear of what the president may do if reelected — the market would be healthy. That said, the Obama Factor has had another positive element, which has helped the cultural resurgence of firearms. The president has effectively muzzled the anti-gun movement since 2009, while promising, “We are working on it.” The lack of near-daily diatribes from the anti-gun movement has provided an opportunity for the industry and gun owners to tell their story. Even the president’s begrudging admission that the Second Amendment guarantees the right of citizens to own firearms helped provide an opportunity for the truth to emerge.
Playing a major role in getting that truth out is NSSF, which has firmly established itself as the voice of the industry. That has been key to getting the industry story told — including recent data on impressive hiring by industry companies. NSSF’s near-instant reaction to anti-firearm business legislation and initiatives, and their consumer information programs and better-business projects — all have a major impact.

Yes, the American people have got it. It’s OK to own a firearm and it’s OK to have fun shooting. And they are buying firearms at a rate not seen in 20 years.

More at LINK

[barracuda]

School shootings, bombings, and fires are SOP for the false flag crowd. Wombat recently posted a piece on the1927 Bath Consolidated School bombing in Bath, Michigan, that killed 38 elementary school children and six adults back on page 7 of this thread, link here:

Sorry, but I have to chase you down on this one, because just one page ago you listed a set of characteristics of black ops and the Bath School disaster doesn't really appear to conform to any of them.

1) This has every appearance of a black op: highly improbable lone-nut shooter; no physical evidence of his involvement; no recent photographs of this shooter or his mother, much less of their corpses; and most ridiculously familiar of all, no evidence of a motive.

There was, in retrospect, nothing improbable about the fact of Andrew Kehoe's commission of the crime, as he was pretty consistently angry, argumentative and accusatory towards the objects of his attack, especially Huyck (the attack was in fact characteristic of the man - he probably murdered his stepmother when he was a child); there was considerable and indisputable evidence of his involvement in the person of the large crowd of assembled witnesses to his murder-suicide; there were recent photos of both himself and his wife; the corpses of himself and his wife were readily available for examination; and there was a great deal of evidence of several possible and exceedingly strong motivations (though even using the idea of motivation in regard to the mass murder of children is, to me, somewhat nonsensical because, really, there is no aggrievement that can justify the extent of such actions by either man or state, and neither the repetition nor commonness of those actions can change that).

I don't think Wombaticus wrote his SR article in order to position Kehoe as a false flag. In fact, I know he didn't. And I don't see how you can fairly claim him as one while tending to your set of parameters for identifying such ops, unless those parameters are indefinably flexible in some manner known only to yourself.

The reality is that falsely identifying every mass killer as a black op is, oddly enough, disempowering to your readership in precisely the opposite manner you envision, because if an insane person cannot take a routinely available automatic weapon and kill and injure dozens of unarmed, innocent people, then just how effective do you think an armed insurgency or revolution against the state might be? And if your answer to that is,

Forget gun control. They don't care about that because they know it's too late for the people to rise up.

...then just sit back and enjoy the show. If five- or six-hundred million privately owned guns can't effectively give power to the citizenry, we might as well outlaw guns entirely, because, let's face it - if guns were outlawed, Adam Lanza never could have gotten his hands on one, and the state actors you seem to think are bent on committing these crimes would have to come up with some entirely different scenarios.

As a footnote, the idea that 911 was conceived and perpetrated to help the asbestos industry is just... I'm not even sure what to say about that old chestnut anymore.

[Wombaticus Rex]

While that was not my intention I certainly don't begrudge anyone using anything I've done as data points for their own collage, it's exactly how I treat everything I've read.

I also appreciate the heads-up on this Our Lady of the Angels incident -- that is completely new to me.

I terms of "Smith & Wesson shareholders" I don't think it stands as an argument to bring up a single company, especially one that's been having serious problems competing and dealing with internal quality control for years ... with a shiver, I just realized how tuned into gun culture I still am .... but anyways, as a counter-example, although the Cerberus decision to dump Freedom Group was spun as crisis of conscience PR, it's really just the final phase of a long game plan to consolidate, streamline and sell the whole thing at peak profitability levels.

Remember that while it seems reasonable to talk about "the market wouldn't see a future in it," bear in mind the market cannot see a future in anything which is why junk bonds are huge and every prop desk in the world is trading on 24-120 hour horizons. Cerberus will definitely cash out handsomely on their 95% stake with guns sales at the levels they enjoy post-Newtown. There is definitely a viable thread of cui bono to pursue here.

[Project Willow]

I was going to exit the discussion, but I thought I might as well add some dittos.

I strongly disagree for several reasons:

1) This has every appearance of a black op:

No, it doesn't. Nothing you posted in your response to me is actually evidence. Evidence is the presence of information. A lack of information does not constitute evidence of a conspiracy. You've taken a perceived vacuum and filled it with your own fantasies.

I agree that it has all the markings of a black op.

No it doesn't. Yes, there are networks of people, some of whom are very powerful, who are bent on and involved in programs to instill fear in and manipulate the public in order to exercise more control. However, it serves no one, especially people who are open to the general idea, to assume that this is what is taking place in every large traumatic incident, that's actually playing another hand in the fear mongering game.

I'm with Volin.

Yes, the assumption of the speculators seems to be that the network has infinite resources and opportunities. It doesn't. There's no sense in wasting valuable assets on events where the impacts are, at best, nebulous. There are much more important geopolitical and domestic programs requiring the level of investment necessary to pull off a Sandy Hook type op, if it were one. Has anyone noticed our empire is involved in multiple military skirmishes and wars around the globe right now?

[compared2what?]

Cerberus will definitely cash out handsomely on their 95% stake with guns sales at the levels they enjoy post-Newtown. There is definitely a viable thread of cui bono to pursue here.

I took a little bit of an idle run at that one. But not only could I not find anything on how much sales go up after shootings, I couldn't even confirm that they do. I mean, there are media reports to that effect. But they're all anecdotally sourced to a few local gun-shop owners. And it's not like there are photos, videos and witnesses for each and every purchase.

Firearms sales generally have been booming for years, though:

How well is the industry doing? The truth is in the number of background checks conducted for firearm purchases, and company financial statements that substantiate the impressive state of the industry.

In May, NICS conducted 840,412 background checks (NSSF adjusted), reflecting a 20.6-percent increase over May 2010. This marks the 24th straight month that the number of background checks have increased, compared to the same months of the previous two years.
NSSF reports that their adjusted NICS data shows increases for 2012, compared to 2011, in January: 17.3 percent, February: 31.4 percent, March: 20 percent and April: 10.5 percent.

Also notable is the number of background checks conducted in December 2011, the largest number in any one month in the history of NICS, which began in 2008. NICS conducted 1,410,937 (NSSF adjusted) background checks in December 2011, a 25-percent increase over December 2010.

For the first quarter of 2012, Ruger reported net sales of $112.3 million, an increase of 49 percent, compared to the same quarter in 2011, along with corresponding earnings that “nearly doubled.”

On May 21, Smith & Wesson Holding Corp. reported preliminary net sales for the fourth quarter ending April 30 were approximately $129 million, an increase of approximately $28 million, or 28 percent, compared to the same quarter last year.

On May 18, Freedom Group announced its first-quarter sales, ending March 31, were $206 million, up 17 percent from the same period last year. Net sales of firearms for the quarter were $127.4 million, a 34-percent increase compared to the quarter ending March 31, 2011.

^^Same July 2012 article I linked to up-thread, which also has all the individual-company stats for domestically produced guns. But Glocks are evidently the best-selling handguns in America. And the available figures don't cover gun-show sales, which are evidently a huge part of the market. So the numbers are difficult to ascertain. .

[Wombaticus Rex]

Shotgun News is the spot. Been reading that since I was about 7.

Anyways, some recent data points:

Via: http://www.shotgunnews.com/2012/01/03/g ... t-but-why/

Jan 03, 2012: Gun Sales Booming, But Why?

Few things make for a jolly holiday atmosphere around SGN as much as hearing that gun sales are up. When advertisers are happy, we’re happy. And advertisers should be exceptionally happy this season.

The FBI reported the greatest number of NICS (National Instant Check System) checks on record in December, with more than 1.5 million. Dealers requested 102,222 background checks Dec. 23, the second-busiest day in history. The record went to the day after Thanksgiving, at 129,166 checks. The previous one-day high was set November 28, 2008, when gun dealers requested almost 98,000 background checks.

Since the NICS program began in 1998, more than 130 million checks have been made, with a rejection rate around 1%. Whether it’s cost-effective to investigate 99 law-abiding potential buyers to catch one scofflaw can certainly be debated. But up to now, at least, the NICS check has not been a major bottleneck in gun sales.

Via: http://www.shotgunnews.com/2012/11/27/r ... gun-sales/

November 27th, 2012: Record Black Friday Gun Sales

With more than two years of steady year-over-year growth, firearms retailers probably didn’t need a big Friday to get in the black, but they got one anyway. As the National Shooting Sports Federation reported:

“A new single-day record for point-of-sale background checks was established on Black Friday, November 23, when 154,873 were conducted by the FBI National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS). That total was nearly 20 percent more than the previous high of 129,166 set on Black Friday last year. Since a federal background check is mandatory for every firearm sold at retail, background check activity serves as an indicator of retail gun sales.”

Actually, a NICS check is not required for every sale, since some states do their own checks or exempt concealed carry permit holders. But that only means that the total sales were even greater than reported by the FBI.

The National Instant Check System reported delays for phone background checks, but said its computerized E-Check system was keeping up with the demand. NICS encourages FFL holders to enroll with the E-Check system to avoid long wait times. FFLs can learn more about enrolling in NICS E-Check by visiting the NICS FFL Web site.

It’s a fair bet that a great percentage of the guns being bought these days are black guns and pistols, and that greatly complicates life for the Dianne Feinstein wing of the Democratic Party. It was one thing to try to ban AR-15s when a hardcore few were buying them out of SGN. It’s quite another when Wal-Mart is selling them by the truckload.

[lupercal]

It was one thing to try to ban AR-15s when a hardcore few were buying them out of SGN. It’s quite another when Wal-Mart is selling them by the truckload.

Bingo.
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There was, in retrospect, nothing improbable about the fact of Andrew Kehoe's commission of the crime. . . . and there was a great deal of evidence of several possible and exceedingly strong motivations. . . .

Which you've neglected to post.
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A lack of information does not constitute evidence of a conspiracy. You've taken a perceived vacuum and filled it with your own fantasies.

A lack of a motive suggests a lack of a motive. And speaking of fantasies, who posted this gem:

shooter killed his mother then killed another part of her in the form of the kids and others who were attached to her as a teacher.