Freedom Rifle...

I mentioned picking up my second York Arms lower a few weeks back. Now, I'd been wondering what to do with it for a while now, going back and forth between a few ideas. Wally has been pushing an SBR angle for it - there's a great deal of appeal to that thought, especially with the "Fill your hands" safety selector and "5.56 POODLE" caliber designation. It is not exactly a serious gun in that regards. Another idea floated was an AR-15 based 9mm carbine.

And then NY happened. And York's response to the insane rush to DO SOMETHING that resulted in a law so hastily enacted that they forgot to exempt law enforcement from the magazine ban. And then CO jumped in on the stupid (and appears to be poised on the edge of enacting a ban that will bring them in line with NEW FREAKIN' JERSEY on magazine restriction).

I had the very good fortune to break bread with Pete Brownells at SHOT Show in January. He joined a group of us bloggers and new media types and YouTubers for lunch, and we bent his ear for the better part of a couple hours over the state of the industry, the atmosphere surrounding firearms and politics, and what we as media folks friendly to the Second Amendment could do.

And everything clicked - and I knew what this rifle would be: My Freedom Rifle.

It starts here:

That's a Magpul MOE stock kindly donated by Brownells for this project, along with a matching Magpul pistol grip, and a Brownells parts kit and stock kit once they're in stock. All will be assembled on the York Arms lower, which will be mated to a dedicated .22LR upper. This rifle will be used for new shooters and anyone that's curious about the AR-15 platform. I'd love to put something like a Leupold Deltapoint or an EOTech on it as a quality red dot optic to make the rifle stupid easy for even the newest shooter.

There's just something poetic about a training rifle for new shooters assembled out of a lower from a company that told NY to get stuffed, wearing furniture from a company that told CO to get stuffed, put together by a gun nut from Massachusetts. If I could find a .22LR upper from a company that was part of the NY - or CO - boycott, that'd just complete the deal...

I'll be detailing this as things come together, so stay tuned for the ongoing saga of the MArooned Freedom Rifle!

That is all.