photo by: Submitted

A handgun specially-equipped with safety technology from Baldwin City-based Free State Firearms is shown.

A law enforcement agency buying a gun isn’t exactly a big deal. Given that firearms are part of the standard equipment for most police officers, such purchases are happening all the time.

But one such purchase has become a big deal for a Baldwin City-based company. When the sheriff’s office in Real County, Texas sent its officers onto the street with a handgun from Baldwin City’s Free State Firearms, it was a major moment for the small southern Douglas County company that is trying to sell a big idea.

The firearm that began hanging off the hip of select Texas deputies is a special type of firearm that will only fire if the weapon is in extreme proximity to an RFID-enabled ring. In other words, if the hand holding the gun isn’t also wearing the ring, the gun won’t fire.

That idea had big appeal to Real County’s sheriff, especially for one particular type of deputy — those who transport prisoners. A nightmare scenario for law enforcement is that a prisoner somehow gets a gun away from a guard. With the Baldwin City-designed gun — called the Sentry 1911 — a prisoner would have a piece of metal in his hand but not a gun that is able to fire.

For Free State Firearms, the fact that law enforcement personnel are now using the Sentry 1911 on a daily basis may be a watershed moment for the approximately five-year old company, president and co-founder Tom Holland said.

While this certainly the first time a law enforcement agency has put the Sentry 1911 into duty use, Holland said research suggests this is the first time any law enforcement agency in the U.S. has used any type of “user-authenticated firearm technology” in its operations.

“This is a landmark moment for firearm safety technology,” Holland said.

If Holland’s name sounds familiar, it may be because he was a Kansas state senator who represented parts of Lawrence and southern Douglas County for years. In all, he served 22 years as a representative and senator in Kansas, and was the Democratic nominee for governor in 2010.

As we reported, Holland started the firearms company while he was in office, and has been focused on making it a national player in the firearms industry since he left office in 2024 after not seeking re-election. Holland thinks this recent sale to Real County Texas could be the real turning point for the company’s sales.

“We believe this deployment will open eyes across the law enforcement and consumer markets,” Holland said. “If it performs in prisoner transport — one of the most operationally demanding environments a duty weapon faces — it performs anywhere.”

The Real County Sheriff’s Office — a community of about 2,700 people located about 90 miles northwest of San Antonio — tested the weapon extensively before issuing it to county deputies responsible for inmate security issues.

“Weapon retention during prisoner transport is one of the most serious safety considerations my deputies face,” Real County Sheriff Nathan Johnson said in a press release. “Free State Firearms’ user-authenticated technology gave us a solution that directly addresses that risk. After thorough testing, we were confident it was ready for duty use — and it has performed exactly as advertised. We’re proud to be the first agency to deploy this technology, and we believe it represents the future of responsible law enforcement carry.”

As for what may be next for the Baldwin City company, Holland — who co-founded the company with Lawrence attorney Brennan Fagan — is betting on more sales and activity for the company. However, don’t go looking for a firearms factory in Baldwin City. The company uses a 9-millimeter handgun — a 1911 model — produced by the venerable firearms manufacturer Colt.

What Free State Firearms developed is a proprietary RFID user authentication system that Free State Firearms adds to the Colt 1911 firearm. In addition to the RFID ring, that system includes a rechargeable battery magazine that allows the firearm to be locked until the RFID ring is identified. That unlocking process takes about a fifth of a second, according to the company’s website.

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photo by: Chad Lawhorn/Journal-World

A display board shows various products made by McFarlane Aviation.

Just up the road from Baldwin City, a notable sale of a different type has occurred. McFarlane Aviation — the once small aircraft parts manufacturer based at the rural Vinland airport — is now owned by a publicly traded company.

Earlier this month, TransDigm Group announced that it has purchased the parent company of McFarlane Aviation. In a $2.2 billion deal TransDigm purchased Jet Parts Engineering and Victor Sierra Aviation Holdings from the private equity firm Vance Street Capital.

McFarlane Aviation was founded in Douglas County in 1979 by Dave McFarlane at the Vinland airport, which primarily was being used as a base of operations for Dave’s crop dusting business. But like many owners of small aircraft, McFarlane was frustrated by the price and availability of some of the parts needed to keep his aircraft in operation.

McFarlane founded the company to begin making a few such parts — a small washer used in the seat mechanism of Cessnas was its first product. When we last reported on the company in late 2024 — when Dave was awarded a pair of the Federal Aviation Administration’s top lifetime achievement awards — the company had grown to include about 3,000 products.

As the Journal-World reported in that September 2024 article, Dave McFarlane sold a majority stake of McFarlane Aviation to Victor Sierra Aviation Holdings. The private company — which itself was owned by the private equity firm Vance Street Capital — ended up owning three aviation brands, McFarlane Aviation, Tempest Aero Group and Aviation Products Systems. All three of those brands were included in the sale to TransDigm. According to a release from TransDigm, the three brands employed about 400 people. When we last reported on McFarlane Aviation, it was employing about 150 people itself.

Also included in the sale is Vance Street Capital’s other big aviation holding, Jet Parts Engineering, a Seattle-based company with engineering and repair facilities in Texas, New York, Alabama and overseas.

TransDigm is a publicly traded company — symbol TDG on the New York Stock Exchange — based in Cleveland. The company has 55 different operating units, and boasts that virtually every aircraft in service in the world has a TransDigm part on it somewhere. It has about 18,000 employees in 136 different locations, according to its website. It posted revenues of about $8.8 billion in 2025.

McFarlane Aviation has been an important job producer in Douglas County in its own right. When I reported on the company in 2011, it had 38 employees. It has constructed multiple new buildings on the site of the Vinland airport, which still operates with a grass runway. As I mentioned earlier, the best estimate I have for the company’s current employee total is about 150 workers.

That number, though, apparently is expected to go up. I haven’t been able to catch up with a local representative of the company to discuss the sale, however, an assistant to the company’s local manager told me McFarlane is currently hiring both full time employees and interns.