New products are introduced to outdoor sports every year. That’s sort of the nature of outdoor stuff; everybody has a plan to get rich on the collective simple-mindedness of outdoor enthusiasts.
For the most part, these outdoor gadgets and geegaws are harmless and fraught with humor over the sheer madness of the concept to begin with. One year, for example, I got a press release singing the praises of a new spring-loaded, double-jaw fishhook. The silly thing weighed more than the average legal trout, but was designed so a really hard tug on the bait would cause these metallic jaws to snap closed on the cheeks of the hapless fish.
The darned thing didn’t work, but the humor came when the designer neglected to check anybody’s game laws. Such a self-tripping fishhook was illegal in every state and most civilized nations in the world. Besides, they were just plain stupid!
Another time I got a free sample of an all-organic mosquito repellent wipe. The skeeters apparently mistook it for a combination skin softener and appetizer!
This week a new press released crossed my desk touting a product I believe to be enough different to scare a sane person’s socks off.
In my view, this incredibly brainless device is a shooting accessory that has no business ever being manufactured and the imbeciles who invented, manufacture, and market it should be sent to prison.
The company — American Technologies Network, Corp — has breathlessly announced the release of its “Aries MK 410 Night Vision Riflescope.”
Honest, I’m not kidding about this. These damned fools (at least in my estimation) will ship you, for a mere $649 plus tax and shipping, an infrared technology telescopic sight that will mount on standard ⅞” Weaver or Picatinny scope rails on your very own rifle.
Who, in God’s name, needs a scope that will allow them to hit a target at 100 yards in pitch darkness? Only the dregs of society, that’s who!
It is illegal for hunting, illegal for varmint shooting, illegal for target shooting and, to the best of my knowledge, illegal for any other legitimate shooting sport. It is only legal for use by military snipers, and they already have theirs.
In truth, only international and domestic terrorists, drug cartels, career criminals, and a handful of off-center paranoid survivalists would have a use for this ill-conceived product.
The manufacturer says it’s for “personal security.” Oh, Puleeze! I can’t imagine any “personal security” application for this heinous tool — unless you count shooting the cop out to arrest you.
If a would-be mugger or carjacker was so far away you needed a scope to shoot his tail off at midnight, he doesn’t pose a sufficient threat to require deadly force. Any court in the land would convict you for using it!
In my opinion, this is a shooting accessory that no person with the slightest shred of sportsmanship or humanity would own, use, or even condone the sale of.
Every time a product as lame as this abomination hits the market, it gives the anti-gun zealots just that much greater argument to take our lawful firearms away from us and scrap the second amendment.
In fact, I think this scary scope is so unreal that maybe the anti-gun mob is behind it! That’s the way I see it, anyway.
