2002
From Gunsopedia
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January
- January 16 — An armed student and another armed bystander ruin the day of a would-be spree shooter at a Virginia law school.
February
- February 15 — Smith & Wesson Corp., recently acquired by from Tompkins PLC (whose kowtowing to the Clinton administration had led gun owners to boycott S&W products en masse), becomes the Smith & Wesson Holding Corporation.
March
- First production 6.5 Grendel brass cartridges manufactured to specification by Lapua.
- March 3 — Four Royal Canadian Mounted Police officers are gunned down in Mayerthorpe, Alberta, Canada. It is deadliest day in Canadian law enforcement in over 120 years.
- March 18 — Afghanistan: Operation Anaconda (started on March 2) ends after killing 500 Taliban and al Qaeda fighters with 11 allied troop fatalities. The battle also saw Canadian snipers Arron Perry and Rob Furlong both break Carlos Hathcock's longstanding record for the longest sniper kill in history.
April
- A presentation by the Natick Soldier Center reported on lessons learned from M240B and M4use in Afghanistan.
- April 4 — Cost of the Canadian Firearms Program more than triples. The tab for implementing the registry rises to $629 million, according to an audit of the registry: $2 million to help police enforce legislation, at least $60 million for public-relations programs, including television commercials ($18 million of which went to ad agency GroupAction, which received millions in sponsorship scandal contracts) and $227 million in computer costs. Complicated application forms slow processing times and drive costs higher. Then there is $332 million for other programming costs, including money to pay staff to process the forms.
June
- The National Endowment for the Humanities decided they had had enough of Michael A. Bellesiles' nonsense and revoked funding for his Fellowship at the Newberry Library.
- June 10 — Nunavut Tunngavik Inc., a group overseeing the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement, files a lawsuit against the Canadian federal government, arguing that the long gun registry goes against an understanding that Inuit would be able to hunt, trap and fish without licensing or fees.
July
- July 11 — The Belgian government endorsed delivery of 5,500 Minimi machine guns to the Nepalese Army.
August
- August 9 — Longtime civil rights activist and Second Amendment advocate Charlton Heston publicly announced he was diagnosed with symptoms consistent with Alzheimer's disease.
- August 29 — Hurricane Katrina makes landfall along the U.S. Gulf Coast.
September
- September 7 — Uziel Gal passed away at the age of 79, after a year-long battle with cancer.
October
- Smith and Wesson announced that they were getting into the bicycle business.
- October 2 — The Beltway sniper attacks begin in Maryland, extending over three weeks.
December
- December 5 — In the case of Silveira v. Lockyer, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit showed just how dumb judges can be by not being able to figure out that the Second Amendment is an individual right
- December 7: — Former Emory University professor of history Dr. Michael A. Bellesiles, author of Arming America: The Origins of a National Gun Culture, had his Bancroft Prize revoked for "scholarly misconduct."
- The Auditor-General of Canada, Sheila Fraser, reported that the Canadian long gun registry project was running vastly above initial cost estimates (500 times more, to be precise). It was also disclosed that one out of every six firearms registered has no serial number.
Also this year
- The cost of ammo in North America began to rise.
- The LAPD chose a slightly modified and specially marked ("LAPD SWAT CUSTOM II") version of the Kimber Custom TLE II as the standard issue for its SWAT unit.
- NATO began to conduct a series of tests with the intention of standardizing a PDW cartridge as a replacement for the 9x19mm Parabellum cartridge. The T194 training round didn't even last the year.
- Hornady introduced the .17 HMR.
- The first web-based "gun shows" began appearing on the internet. Typically, these did not charge the high table rent fees that dealers at traditional shows pay, and also do not charge shoppers the admission for browsing that traditional shows do.
- After four years of development, Grand Power SRO in Slovakia began producing the Grand Power K100.
- The Front Sight Firearms Training Institute closed its Bakersfield, California facility and moved all operations to their Nye County, Nevada location.
- Savage Arms developed the AccuTrigger.
- Robert A. Levy, a Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute, began vetting plaintiffs with Clark M. Neily III for a planned Second Amendment lawsuit that he would personally finance.
- Mexico cancelled all CCWs authorizing military caliber pistols and re-issued to authorize only up to .380 ACP caliber pistolas.
- BAE Systems resold HK to a German group (H&K Beteiligungs-GmbH) that was created for this purpose.
- American economist and author John Lott repeated his 1997 survey on defensive gun uses.
- The LEAA spent $1.5 - 2 million to air ads against Democratic candidate Kirk Watson's bid for Texas Attorney General.
- Chris W. Cox became the NRA's chief lobbyist and principal political strategist.
- Canadian fast draw shooter Nicole Franks racked up four more championships.
- Todd Jarrett won the USPSA Open Nationals Championship.
- Over 60 years after the .280 British cartridge was designed, the clock turns full circle, as the Americans developed a new military calibre called the 6.8 mm Remington SPC which is ballistically very similar to the .280 British cartridge.
- The 4th generation 4-position nylon retractable stock for the AR15, designed by Picatinny Arsenal engineer Lily Ko, is introduced with reinforced ribs, an angled buttplate, and a rear sling swivel.
- Virginia lawmaker Joseph Morrissey, who gained notoriety in January 2013 when he brandished a borrowed AK-47 during an anti-gun speech in the Virginia state legislature, was found guilty of a vicious 1999 assault, sanctioned for legal misconduct while prosecuting a rape case, and spent six months in jail for contempt of a federal court.
- The now-defunct Americans for Gun Safety Foundation orchestrated a $2.8M media campaign to pass gun control initiatives in Colorado and Oregon which included mailings, radio and television ads, and most notability a $1.85M television ad buy featuring Republican senator John McCain.
- The US Marine Corps began issuing small quantities of new bayonets of a different design from the M9, with an 8-inch Bowie knife-style blade and no fuller, manufactured by the Ontario Knife Company of New York.
- Colt Defense was split off from Colt's Manufacturing Company.
Year in pictures
January 17: Peter Odighizuwa is escorted into court.
July 25: Aboard a patrol craft from SBU-17 as she enters San Diego Bay.
September 19: 52nd FW's Operational Readiness Inspection (ORI), at Spangdahlem Air Base, Germany.
December 19: Preventative maintenance and cleaning of an M-60 aboard USS Constellation.
The Tradewinds 2002 Field Training Exercise (FTX), on the island of Antigua.
