Archive for May 4th, 2013

Obit watch: May 4, 2013.

Saturday, May 4th, 2013

This is kind of surprising to see in the NYT: Tom Knapp, noted exhibition shooter.

From 1993 to 2004, Mr. Knapp made and broke his own records for the number of hand-thrown clay targets struck in a single round and for speed in doing so. His last record — 10 airborne targets hit (or “dusted,” in shooting-speak) in 2.2 seconds, each struck with a separate round — was set at an exhibition in Murfreesboro, Tenn., on Oct. 10, 2004.

More:

Mr. Knapp said he had been inspired by trick shooters of the next generation, most notably Herb Parsons, a showman who toured the country from the 1930s through the ’50s and often worked in Hollywood as a trick-shot stand-in for stars like Jimmy Stewart in “Winchester ’73” (1950), which involves a shooting contest.
“Parsons was probably the greatest of the modern era — and in my book, after him, Tom Knapp comes a very close second,” said Warren Newman, curator at the Buffalo Bill Historical Center in Cody, Wyo., a site of trick-shooting exhibitions. “What these two fellows did was always so much more than just shooting.”
He added: “What they did was amaze people, put on a real show. They were outstanding professionals.”

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Random notes: May 4, 2013.

Saturday, May 4th, 2013

I feel sure I’ve written before about the Feds and their effort to shut down the Mongols Motorcycle Club by…seizing their trademarks. Because, of course, not having a logo will deter members of the Mongols from engaging in criminal activity, and they’d never think of something like adopting a new logo, or doing without. After all, how can you make meth without a snazzy logo?

Oddly, though, I can’t find that post. But by way of Reason‘s “Hit and Run”, I have discovered a couple of updates:

  1. The Feds first effort to seize the Mongols trademarks failed. Badly.

    Loy and Alan Mansfield, an attorney with the San Diego-based Consumer Law Group of California, successfully challenged the Justice Department’s last effort to seize the Mongols’ trademark through the tool of asset forfeiture. Citing the government’s “unlawful action based on an ungrounded and unsubstantiated legal theory,” a federal judge also ordered the Justice Department to reimburse the attorneys $253,206.

    So not only did the government not get what they were looking for, they have to pay out a quarter million dollars worth of taxpayer’s money and clean up the garbage.

  2. Typically for the Federal government, if it doesn’t work, do it harder: they’ve filed to seize the trademark again.

In other news, I was considering writing an extended rant about the Statesman and their forthcoming paywall. But now I don’t have to: Lawrence has saved me the trouble, in a post with charts and graphs and words and all that good stuff. I commend it to your attention.

Posted in Clippings, Law, Media | Comments Closed