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Having taken my son shooting a number of times when he was a kid (yes, a .22 rifle), if the AR-15 is the rifle you're the most familiar with, and you treat it as a weapon/tool and not a "get the libs' goat" tool, then it's an entirely appropriate one. It's the parent's attitude that rules here, much more than the weapon. Too often the AR-15 is used as a symbol of "everything that's wrong with gun culture." And it's easier to transform than some other commonly-available guns, which is problematic. But those guns are here -- we can't go back to when they weren't, and if there were to be a nationwide gun ban (maybe the entire NRA were taken over by minorities -- that might do it ), there are so many weapons out there that we'd be multiple generations away from being gun-free. Even longer than getting rid of racism. Wendy P.

Better question. Why does this only seem to happen to Icons, in France, at this specific loft? That would lead me to believe that someone needs to have their packing investigated.

Attenborough must be 1,000 years old by now. I've seen some other statements he has made recently that are easily disproven, which suggests to me that his cognitive abilities are not what they once were. I suspect he is being used by some groups seeking to take advantage of his reputation and gravitas. And yes, there is propaganda on the left as well as the right, and intelligent consumers of information are aware of that. I don't see much of a moral equivalency though, if we are comparing hyperbole regarding the impact of reckless endangerment of the environment to installing a one-party state where only Republicans can be allowed to win elections.

Lawyers with an agenda, and virtually unlimited money from right-wing supporters. A while ago I read that there was literally millions left over after all his legal expenses, and some of his lawyers wanted to return the balance to donors and some (especially one who he fired, and who is also a big name pushing the Trump lie) wanted to keep it for themselves. It's well known that in the US (and I presume elsewhere) there is one law for the rich, another for people in the middle, and yet another for the poor.

Fair enough. The safety was described as"The only departure from the AR-15 pattern was the safety knob on the right-hand side of the rifle. This pill bottle-style safety needs to be pulled out with some force and rotated into the locked position before the rifle can fire. This puts the adult in control of the gun’s safety function." I'd be turned off by $400 for a polymer upper, polymer lower, 7.5" barrel. But I'm sure there will be buyers. In the end the father, instructor will likely be the determinate as to how safe the teaching and use will be. Not how it looks. Anti-gun media is having a field day with it. So that will boost sales.

I stand corrected. I was unaware their mean-reverted bias was low https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/pollster-ratings/

Good morning. There is a difference between journalism with a political orientation and stories that specifically have the design to mislead. The two main journalism media bias charts are in this story. I have to admit I get my FOX news from Brent's posts because the lies are so upfront. But when reading the WSJ the orientation to a pro-business slant is pretty obvious. Just as the NYT has a pro-left leaning(subscriber). But separating fact from fiction. Doesn't take a whole lot of effort, at least IMO.

Don't over stress your noodle. Even if you could understand it you don't want to, your whole schtick would fall apart.

For sure you would be mystified. It's a principle before profit thing.

Those numbers are consistent with polls from NPR and PEW. IMO they are accurate. While the WP has a consistent left wing orientation to its editorials. Its accuracy is well respected.

The best characteristic of Palin is her uncanny resemblance to Tina Fey.

Feb of last year: "Biden SUCKS! He's pandering to China and making them stronger economically. Why are we helping China by making the trade imbalance worse?" This year: "Biden SUCKS! All the cheap Chinese stuff I want to buy at Wal Mart is more expensive now!"

And the Jan 6 Committee is subpoenaing 14 of them. I hope long prison terms are in their future.

Dear Jerry, We "barracks lawyers" could debate this "until the cows come home." In my interpretation, FARs and CARs always loop back to "in accordance with manufacturers' instructions." meaning that any time a rigger ignores a manufacturer's instructions, he/she is also ignoring/violating FARs.

The problem is that every single rig feature out there adds a failure scenario. AAD's? Premature reserve deployment. RSL's? Out of sequence deployment, or entanglement hazard. Two sided RSL's? Main-reserve strangulation. Skyhooks? Non-release of the skyhook during a main total. Two pin reserves? Reserve deployment failure. Single pin reserves? Premature reserve deployment. Reserves? Main-reserve entanglement. Three ring release? Cutaway cable trapping due to line twists, or failure of the white loop on opening. Every gear decision we make is a tradeoff between failure scenarios and odds of that failure. Most of us are OK with the added failure scenarios that a reserve, or an RSL, or an AAD, or a three ring release brings, because we are used to them. So right there you have willingly added four (and often more) failure scenarios to your gear. And I've heard those pissing contests involving Racers, Reflexes, Javelins, Icons, Vectors, Swifts and Flexons. (There's probably more; I just haven't heard them myself.) If you avoid any gear that involves a pissing contest, you'd have a pretty limited selection of gear to choose from.

There are thousands of possible reasons for a reserve hesitation that are NOT the fault of the manufacturer. I'm not saying that it cannot possibly ever be the fault of the manufacturer, but I AM saying that you're jumping to conclusions awfully fast. And Aerodyne does indicate why an excessive long closing loop is bad: it doesn't compress the pilot chute fully and reduces its effectiveness significantly. If we as riggers in the world are to improve the safety of skydiving equipment everywhere, we need to keep an open mind AND be thorough, detailed and open in our analysis. Baseless accusations are worth less than the electricity used to transmit them. If you want me to take you seriously, show what that rig is exactly. What reserve is in it? What main is it in? What AAD is in it? What length is the closing loop? What size exactly is the rig? How was it packed? How was it tested? What exactly did you observe in the failures? Where did stuff catch that wasn't supposed to catch? It's like high school math, just writing down the final number is not enough, you've got to show the work done. Pretty please with sugar on top, show the f*ing details. Otherwise, I'm bringing the beer to Baksteen's popcorn party.

So what flies out of the reserve container and lays on the floor? Maybe if you dont pack your tools in the reserve tray it would open correctly. :)

in fact, I found out what when the cutter location was below the reserve Pilot Chute, once the AAD fired : the cutten loop was too long in between the cutter location and the end of reserve Pilot Chute and had the tendency to keep all the reserve flaps locked together or at least slow down the reserve opening, it is the reason why the rigs manufacturers with reserve PC inside the container like Icon re-located their cutter above the PC. But in this Icon situation, the issue comes from the reserve pin cover flap which goes too deep inside his location, since Aerodyne changed the reserve cover pin flap length, and because these Aerodyne people have no brain, they did not think about it, since it does not work properly by pulling the reserve ripcord, it certainly does not open with and unconscious skydiver not knocking the reserve container...

@carrier louis paul What was that piece of metal that flew off to the side when RPC launced?