Immigrants

Florida has its share of people who've moved here from another state.

What I don't get are the people who complain constantly about Florida and rave about how great where they are from is.

Why did you move again?  There must be some reason you left, or did you just forget?

An observation.

Note that the legacy media loved John McCain prior to his winning the Republican nomination for president in 2008.

They hated him from then until it was President-Elect Obama.

Now they like him again.

Pay attention to that.  If they like him before the election, it's prolly because they think their candidate can beat ours.

h/t Ace; it would appear that we've noticed that trend.  Interesting.

Is it just me...

Or am I the only one who see that pic and thinks, "FREE GUN!"

Seattle Police leave an assault rifle unattended on the trunk of a patrol car.

Porcelain Revised Score

Just wow!

Sad Day?

My paid account back at LiveJournal expired today.

I'd been using that as my blog from some time in 2005 until September 20 last year.

The feeling is akin to when my mom sold my first bike.  I'd outgrown it, I didn't use it, but it's what I learned on.

Bye bye LJ paid account!  The posts are still there as a free account, so it's not a complete severance.

NFA Musings

Sabrina is a clone of an XM177E2.  I paid my $200 and got my tax stamp to have the authentic 11.5" barrel.

I am thinking of dropping the money on Kaylee to put a 14.5" lightweight barrel on her.

The Izzy clone she's become would have a 14.5" pencil barrel or a 13" barrel made from cutting down a 20" M16A1 barrel.  I think I prefer the longer choice here.

Bravo Company sells a bare barrel with the right profile, chrome lined and made from mil-spec CMV steel.  I'd need to get a front sight base and drill for the taper pins.  I've done it before, so no biggie.  A snag with this barrel is that it's 1:7.  While I stock heavier ammo, it's a tad more expensive.  The bare barrel is $229.  Plus $29.95 for the front sight base, plus $4.25 for the taper pins, plus $3.00 for a round handguard cap, plus $2.99 for a front sight post, $1.99 for the front sight detent, and $1.99 for the front sight spring: or $273.17 not to mention shipping.

Midway sells essentially the same barrel from Daniel Defense for $256; making the total $300.17.

ADCO sells the Daniel Defense bare barrel for $265, but offers it with the FSB already installed for $286.

J&T Distributing (aka Double-Star) has a 4140 chrome lined 1:9 barrel assembly for $249.99.  I have lots of ARs with 4140 barrels so I am not too concerned about the material.

And that's it.  This is a niche product.

Bushmaster sells a 4150 1:9 chrome lined barrel assembly that's the right profile, but it's 16".  This is the barrel I ordered for Sabrina.  It would be $235 for the barrel then another $100 to get it cut down to 14.5".  For $335 I can have the better material and rifling...  Oh, and Bushmaster collects state sales taxes without actually paying the state.  They can bite me.

Del Ton used to sell the correct profile 16" 1:9 barrel in 4140 (the wife has one on Cheyenne).  They currently claim to be CMV and 1:7 for $238 chrome lined.  Plus the $100 for cutting it down...  $338 from a vendor I like with the material and twist I like.  Still...

And that's about it.

I guess I could get lucky and stumble across a real live Colt R635 barrel.  That would be 1:12 rifling in the CMV material; and it would be surplus.  Not that I mind since Charlotte's surplus barrel shoots sweet.

The path of least resistance is the J&T.

Terminology.

If you can't say what you mean, you don't mean what you say.

Firearms have sights.  S-I-G-H-T.  That's because they are related to seeing, like eyesight.

Site, S-I-T-E, is not the word you are looking for.  A site is a location and it's not used for aiming.

Another Mystery Solved!

I have figured out why the mississippi river basin is overflowing and causing all this flooding!

It's from all the blood running in the streets in Iowa from six months of being a shall-issue state!

Or all the precipitation they got over the winter and spring.

Iowa was the 39th state to go shall-issue.  The 39th in a row that didn't get any of the dire effects predicted by the gun banners.

I predict that this is the typical situation and Wisconsin will be just like Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Connecticut*, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia and Wyoming.

*Wikipedia says there's some dispute about this state being shall-issue.

Alaska, Arizona, Vermont and Wyoming (pending) don't require a permit at all.  Montana doesn't require a permit outside of a city.

Alabama is officially a may issue state, but is regarded as shall issue in practice.

Even the may issue states aren't experiencing massive gun violence from their few permit holders.

We do seem to have a lot of gun crime in the two remaining places in the US without a permit.  Illinois and Washington DC.  Go figure.

Bubbling since 1994 this has...

Republicans:

Never utter the words, "the president will just veto it," when you control both houses of Congress.

Never utter the phrase, "but the Senate will not pass it," when you control the House.

Pass the damn bills anyway.  MAKE the Democrat sitting president veto it.  MAKE the Democrat controlled Senate vote against it.

In case you are taking notes, this is not a lesson the Democrats need to learn.

By not bringing it to a vote because it's 100% certain to pass you never force the opposition to take a position.  Then they can, later, plausibly state they never opposed whatever it was you didn't bring to a vote.  By forcing the vote, forcing the veto you get them on record with their position on a subject.  You make them own it.  There are times when forcing your opponent into a position is more valuable than winning the battle.

Please, start trying to win wars and stop worrying about skirmishes.

Process or Object?

In America we have a few oddities.

We claim that our laws are to meant to prevent a kind of behavior that leads to a kind of harm.

We're process oriented about it.

Process, put simply, is how we achieve an object.  It's the path to the destination.  It is possible to become so focused on how you are doing something you forget what it is you were trying to do in the first place.

Drunk driving is a decent example.  The object of drunk driving laws is to keep drunks from careening into people and property causing death and destruction.

So we ban having a blood alcohol content above a given mark (0.08% here).  That's process oriented.

It punishes a SAFE drunk driver along with the DANGEROUS ones.

How do I know there are safe drunk drivers?  Because I can see how spotty police coverage is.  They cannot be everywhere and there are certainly impaired people who drive home without damaging a thing.  There are people who do it repeatedly.  Arresting them for drunk driving will not change a thing, really.  They are already out there not hurting anyone.

Let's get back to the object.  We want to prevent people from being killed and property from being destroyed.  Yes, an impaired person is more likely to have that sort of "incident" than a sober one.  It's not a certainty that an impaired person will have an accident than it's a surety a sober one will avoid all collisions.

We looked hard at this in the early '80s and did the math and found that people become impaired at around 0.10% blood alcohol content and that impaired people were a lot more likely to have accidents.  We cranked up the enforcement and put some very harsh penalties on violators.  Quite a few people punished and the number of accidents caused by drunks dropped quite sharply.  Process fitted to achieve the object!

The problem, time and again, with successful efforts like this is the as number of people deterred increases that causes the number of people caught to decrease.  So we have people who helped get the useful process put into place to propose things that suit them politically, but do not affect the objective.

Like dropping the BAC to 0.08%.  Why yes! the number of people caught spiked again after the level was lowered.  What didn't happen, this time, was a drop in accidents caused by intoxicated drivers.  Why?  Because at 0.08% most people aren't impaired.  There was a reason that 0.10% was chosen, that was the threshold were impairment began for most people.

Also part of focusing on the process is how the police manage to maneuver "probable cause" around to be able to apply a breathalyzer to someone showing no outward signs of intoxication.  People complaining about the Pima County SWAT team's violations of the 4th amendment who never complain about traffic stops should stop complaining.

Update on Speaking English

Watching the local news and there's a story about the largish community college.

They interview a student who, in perfect english, talks about how much opportunity for education there is here compared to her home nation of Afghanistan!  She said she didn't even have grade school there.

WTF Hispanics!  If this young lady can learn english in the six years she's lived here it should be no problem for you!

Oooooh, ooooooh, I got this one! I can fix everything!

Read this.

Back?

The core of this nannyism is that since we're paying to keep you healthy after abusing the snot out your body we get to take some preemptive measures to keep you from being more expensive to care for later.

I got it.

I believe it's my right to stuff anything I want into any orifice I have.  Let your imagination run for a bit there, it's OK.  But I am talking about food and drugs and my mouth specifically here.

After years of high-fat low-fiber and no-exercise it will cost more to treat my ailments than someone who watched what they ate and worked out?  Explain to me, again, why I should be paying for either of those people's health care.

Let's just stop.  You are on your own for the costs of your habits.  Get obese and have three hear attacks and need lots of bypasses?  You're on the hook for paying for that, or you die.  Motivational, isn't it?

Without the taxpayers paying for medicine, they have no lever to demand I be healthier to save them some money.  It's a win-win.  More freedom for me, less expense for all!

I used to be smart.

When I learn for myself, I learn quickly and completely.

When I am learning because I am supposed to know or am required to know it for no apparent reason I don't learn it well at all.

I once took the test to join Mensa.  I passed.  I declined to join.  I did it to prove something to myself and I discovered that the local Mensa group should just tattoo their IQ on their foreheads.  It would save time.

What I have not been doing since I left college is doing much learning.

I can clearly remember that I used to know how to do some things, but I can't do them any more.

I once could have calculated what the recoil of the GAU-8 gun was in g when fired from an A-10A in a 30˚ dive.  I can't remember how to do that now.  I tried.  It's clearly NOT 3.8g.  An A-10 doesn't shed nearly 100 mph in a 1 second burst.

Your brain is like a muscle, use it or lose it!

My Dad.

I last spoke to my father on father's day 2007.  I called him to wish him a happy father's day.

For my efforts I got a lecture on how I was not a "real man" because I do not earn more than my wife and that I should show some pride and "support" my family.

My relationship with him, as a child, is defined more by his absence than his presence.  He lived that "support your family" advice.  He worked long hours and did provide for us.

He also played long hours and that was what my mother couldn't bear; thus the divorce.

He was never a dead-beat dad; the checks came on time and as promised.

He taught me not to be afraid to turn wrenches to fix my own car.  He taught me the value of buying the right tool for the job being worth it in the time saved in making the wrong tools work.

He taught me my first lessons in being suspicious about the government's motives and imparted more than a little contempt for unions.

He's the person who explained to me that guns were just machines and tools; even if we rarely went shooting.

His second wife didn't really want my sister and me around.  He facilitated that.  Family 2.0 went much better than 1.0 for him.

My older half brother is the son he wanted me to be.

I've been told that I will regret not maintaining the relationship.  That may be true.  But all the work was on my end.  I gathered that he didn't really want to be Dad, so why force him?

I've never felt like I was worse off for not having him around since I gave up.

Fathers

Today seems a good day to post this rant.

I am generally opposed to welfare because a couple of personal examples.

Dumbass Fuckwad Shitheel is first.  Dumbass has never ascended much past minimum wage in his entire life.  He's on his third wife and is the admitted father of six kids.  He's an adulterer too, so there's likely many more children of his creeping around out there.  Dumbass and his family receive more in tax "returns" than he pays and they receive every form of assistance available.  If it ended there, it might not be so bad.  Dumbass was also a deadbeat dad who "allowed" child support recovery to garnish his wages; incurring extra cost for us to pay his responsibilities.  Dumbass has a temper and has been jailed several times for domestic violence.

His eldest sons are following in his path.

His eldest, Orca, has fathered seven SIX kids of his own with two wives.  He's gone the extra step of getting fat enough to be declared disabled by his mass.  Negative tax payer, full welfare bennies.

Number two or three (lost track) was following this trajectory but is in prison for nearly beating his infant child to death.  That is not an exaggeration.

Wife two and kids four and five seem to be thriving without governmental assistance now that they are clear of Dumbass.

Wife three and child six (currently an infant) are still up in the air.

Dumbass' sister, Bubblebrain, is the female version.  Two kids, min-wage, welfare.  No man in the house, she's a widow; but she's not a good judge of character about the scumbags she brings in on a, literally, monthly basis.  One of the kids has been a medical train-wreck since day one.  He should have died in the delivery room but thanks to us tax-payers nearly a million dollars, again not an exaggeration, of life-saving medical care was applied.  If this clan had the potential to ever pay taxes this would not bug me, we'd make it back eventually.

The rankling thing about this saga has been the level of entitlement presented.  They deserve this money.  It's theirs!  When the males of this tribe have committed violence they circle the wagons and begin a litany of apology/justification for the actions.

It's sick.

The Shitheel family is not an exceptional case in the bottom ranks of our society, but a typical example. It's self perpetuating and will not fix itself.

While a child may not get to choose its parents, a child will learn what their parents teach.  I say that if we have to pay for these kids through our taxes we should have 100% say in how they are raised and they should be raised by someone we approve of.  I cannot help but think that breaking up the Shitheel home in 1985 would have put Orca on a better track than learning what he did at his father's knee.

Now with Sitemeter.

I've added Sitemeter to my blog.

The basic stats from Blogger say I have, on average, 20 views per week from Iran.

Iran!

I have no idea what someone in Iran finds interesting here, but that doesn't make them any different than the 700 or so a week that read it from the USA.

Hello international readers!

<waves>

Hells YES!

Why aren't you speaking english?

The guy had lived here since 1988 and was using a translator to testify.

Twenty three years and isn't fluent in English.

I spent two years in Germany and was speaking passible German, a thick accent I am certain, but well enough that the locals weren't automatically changing to English to do business with me.

My mother's grand parents came over from Italy.  Grampa was forbidden to speak Italian by his parents.  Great Grampa knew some english when he came over, but his wife didn't.  She was the law-maker in the house and she decided that her children were Americans and would speak only english.  So she learned english well enough to teach her kids.

That's a typical immigrant story from before the 1950's.

I have German roots on my father's side, but so far in the past that nobody spoke any.  The Scots/English side even had to learn to speak english all over again because a Scot sounded too much like an Irishman and everyone knows what kind of scum those potato eaters are.  Great Grampa on dad's side would often say, "Better to be black than Irish."  I didn't know what he was talking about for decades.

But that was then.

What we have now is not immigration.  It is colonization.  We are not allowed to apply the gentle pressure of "speak english" to the immigrants to force them into the crucible of the melting pot.  Lots of places in the southwest are de facto Mexico del Norte.  Miami is effectively the largest, most prosperous city in Cuba.  Portions of New Jersey and New York are effectively part of Puerto Rico.

Now that we're realizing that letting enclaves of foreigners form was not the best idea for our national identity it's going to be that much harder breaking it up and getting them to stop being Mexican, Cuban, Puerto Rican or whatever and start being Americans.

For some, it's just a language issue.  I know several cubans who are definitely AMERICAN, but are weak on english.  They simply don't HAVE to use english for much.

It's nothing more than my ancestors did when they came over from Europe; your turn.

h/t Jay

I want an AK.

The problem is that I know a lot about the various military issue guns, I have little knowledge about the semi-auto guns.

I want it in 7.62x39mm and with an under-folding stock.

Which one is that?

Gun Walker

Could be worse than Iran Contra?

Maybe, but one thing is for sure if it is.  There's no Olivier North waiting to take the fall for President Obama.  They'll hedge until pinned and then they'll roll over like a dead trout.

This could be as big as Watergate.

Wouldn't that be fun to go through again, except with the opposite team floundering?

A Capital Idea!

I think I have a way to kill two birds with one stone!

Mexico has a bit of a problem with their narco gangs getting ahold of machine guns.

Two things would take (at least some of it anyway) their arms market away from them.

First, allow the importation of complete "icky" gun parts kits, including the barrels.

Second, reopen registration of machineguns by repealing the Hughes amendment.

The both things create a market that's not Mexico for the current owners to be rid of the things that doesn't contribute to the narco gangs arsenals.

"Gee, Mr McThag, doesn't the first thing do that all by itself?"

No.

The second thing is necessary so that the guns will be dearly held here.  I oppose registration, but NFA owners are the most law abiding of the law abiding.  The first thing allows the guns to be rendered into a non-firing easy to import state.  The second thing allows some to be imported whole and takes huge burden off both the buyer and BATFE in making sure that there's no illegal possession of parts.

While I am shooting for the moon, let's also remove short barrel guns and sound suppressors from the NFA.

My Disclaimer

The state of Tennessee can suck my genital region in a gentle soothing manner over their dumbass law.

This blog is written and produced in Florida, not Tennessee.  If anyone is viewing it in TN they are crossing state lines to commit their "crime".

Blogs are the new media.  They are as protected by the first amendment as any other form of political speech.  Bloggers are the same as pamphleteers, newspapers, magazines, television, etc...

Tennessee is going to lose this one in court and lose big.

UPDATE:
Links?  You want links?  This is just the first five from a search on Bing for "tennessee internet ban".
http://gammasquad.uproxx.com/2011/06/tennessee-tries-to-ban-pretty-much-everything-on-the-internet
http://erosionoffreedom.wordpress.com/2011/06/11/tennessee-to-ban-all-offensive-internet-images-oh-noes/
http://www.geekosystem.com/tennessee-bans-posting-offensive-images/
http://venturebeat.com/2011/06/10/tennessee-law-bans-offensive-images-online/
http://www.engadget.com/2011/06/10/tennessee-law-bans-distressing-images-opens-your-facebook-inb/

Standing

The principle of standing in court is that I have to have been harmed by the bad law before I can bring suit.

It's a lot like noticing the wing is being held on with duct tape and having to wait until the plane crashes before you can complain about the shoddy maintenance.

Happy Flag Day

Jennifer's Gunnie Meme

I am struck by how many of us were gun owners long before we became gunnies.

Interesting.

Inglorious End to an Old Lady

We won't be getting any more footage like this again, Liberty Belle is dead.  Sad that the plane is gone, but at least everyone got out OK.  Kudos to the pilot for getting her down so that everyone could get out.  If this was a flight like the one my little video is from, there should be a ton of pics from the passengers before too long.

I think that these old birds belong in the sky, but that means that eventually there will be none left as freak (or not-so-freak) occurrences eventually get them all.

Links: NBC Chicago; EAA; and WKRC Cincinnati.  Link directly to the "crash" pics.  Edit to add: this was not a crash you dunderheaded journalism majors!  This was an emergency landing, successfully made!  Also you should not be reporting "seven survived" in the headlines, that implies that there were some who didn't.  Report "no one hurt" and you'll be more accurate.  Things like that are why you're losing readers.

Pics of my trip to see her in October, 2009.
by z09ss

Spreading the word.

Hat-Tip to Ace:

Tips for Not Appearing Crazy On The Internet.

Awkward Moment

America is at an awkward stage.

We're well past the point where we believe that voting will fix anything.

We're past the point where screaming from the soapbox is having an influence with the elected officials.

It's getting apparent that we should have started shooting the bastards a while ago.

We're realizing that someone is going to have to be the first person to take that shot and we are pretty damn certain that the first shot will be the only shot.  So we hold fire, not wanting to be that one person.

If I am going to be the only person shooting, I think that shooting myself is the cleaner solution.

I have some hope for 2012, but not much.

I am an Atheist.

According to some, I am an oppressed minority.

Funny, I don't feel oppressed.

I live in the 5th worst state to be an atheist in too.  I feel less oppressed here than in the didn't-make-the-top-ten state of Iowa.

Wanna know something?  Religion just doesn't come up most of the time.  It's not an issue unless I make it an issue.  I watched some of my gay friends go through this too.  They were oppressed, just ask the national leadership about how bad it is.  Except nothing kept happening to them until they kept demanding their oppression be acknowledged.  Then the response was more along the lines of, "Stop with the drama, nobody cares you're gay."

So, stop with the drama, OK?

Let's talk about how religion is actually harming you.  Been beat up by a gang of Christian zealots?  Can you show me a police report if you say yes?

Anyone?

The prayers of the Christians do not harm me.  It doesn't hurt me physically or financially to let them chat up their imaginary friend (to put it in a rude way).

What do I gain that I don't have if we shove open acceptance of atheism down their throats?  Nothing.  I garner some well earned resentment from them.  I don't think we can feel all butt-hurt that Christians want to associate with other Christians.

Mentioned in the article is Christians don't want their daughters marrying atheists.  What about the other way around?  This is one I've watched.  Atheist husband has a fucking snit at every family gathering with the inlaws because they're religious and insist upon a prayer before dinner.  THEIR HOUSE THEIR RULES!  I've heard the religious family members complain that they are never invited over to their daughter's house for such gatherings because of HIM.  They've talked to me at length about how it's HIS attitude not theirs that's keeping them away, and they'd skip the prayer in his house, after all it is HIS house to set the rules in.  These same religious people don't have a problem with me being an atheist either; in fact they wanted my opinion BECAUSE of my lack-o-faith.

Are you being shunned for being an atheist, or do they shun everyone making an ass of themselves?

Breda Photos

Breda PG

The subject is not wearing clothes, but it's definitely not a librarian.

You may need to register for their newsletter to see the pics, but that is a small price to pay for admission to their vault.

Never forget

We often focus on the Democrats when we talk about being gun controlling bastards.

Let us not forget that Ronald Reagan signed The FOPA which gave us the Hughes Amendment that prevents us from owning new machine guns.

Let us never forget that the import ban by executive order of evil looking guns was George Herbert Walker Bush.  It was also he who signed the despised 18 USC 922r.

Those two presidents have had more negative effect lately than anything Clinton did.  His shit, for the most part, expired.

How did I become a gunner?

Jennifer wants to know.

I don't have a definite point where I wasn't a gunner before but I definitely was after.  It was a nebulous transition period.

When I was a child, being a boy, we played cops and robbers, cowboys and indians and war.  All required some sort of toy gun.  My parents didn't care I was out of the house and those games meant I was exercising.

My circle of friends loved the WW2 films and TV shows that were on syndication on the local UHF channels.  This led us to an interest in military technology and 1/35 scale models of tanks, and 1/48 scale models of planes.

For me the model thing led to ever more detailed research to build better and better (read more accurate) models.  It also led to changing to 1/72 for airplanes because of space considerations.

At some point I found myself in Iowa (visiting relatives; I lived in Bolingbrook, Illinois).  I fired my first round ever from a .22 rifle my uncle owned.  He took my cousin (his son) my sister and me all shooting at some cans.  I had a great time!  Alas, my home appeared to be a gun free zone.  I didn't know about Illinois and guns at the time (being a wee lad of 3-9).

My dad had a 1911 stashed away, illegally, that I had stumbled across at least once as a kid.  But dad never went shooting or took us with if he did.

Then there was the divorce.  Mom took my sister and I to Iowa where her relatives lived.

There I was reintroduced to the idea of guns through a boyfriend of Mom's.  Again, a .22, again FUN!

At some point I acquired a bb gun (gift from dad) and even got in trouble for shooting at a friend's brother's feet.  Got the "you'll put an eye out" lecture and everything.  Problem here is that I had nobody TEACHING me about guns.  I got better about it.

Some place around here I got the idea that we didn't need guns, so banning them would be OK.

I remained interested in guns because of my interests in mil-tech and because I had discovered table-top role playing games.  Champions, Traveller, Twilight 2000 and GURPS more than AD&D.  Characters needed guns and knowing the real stats about them gave you an edge over the GM.

I have more than one musty old character sheet where the character packs a Browning GP35 for no reason other than it held 13 rounds instead of 6 or 7.

For Twilight 2000 and GURPS I delved even more into real stats since those were the first games I played that even came close to dabbling in real numbers.

Some place in here I had my first debate about needing a gun.  I blame this guy.  He is the first person who confronted me about what I was thinking and why.  Introduced me to the idea of critical thinking, he did.

I was still brutally ignorant about firearms laws, I thought there was 100% registration and all sorts of nonsense.

Along in here my Dad admitted to owning some guns, which I was allowed to shoot on rare occasions.  I acquired some friends who had .22's and we went plinking from time to time; but I had only a small interest in actually owning a gun.  That small interest was a Galil.  It was the coolest gun evar!  It's far superior than anything else because it holds 35 rounds not 20 or 30...

But I never got that Galil.

Instead I joined the Army.

I joined in 1987 just short of my 19th birthday.  '87 was a transition year for someone going into tanks.  I was signed as a 19K (Abrams Crew) but we learned the M60A3 as well; just in case the unit we were assigned to had not changed over yet.

Gun geek heaven!  But I was not yet a gun geek.  I had fun shooting and learning all the different guns though.

At some point in here I decided that I would personally own a firearm.  At some undefined future date.

Then my unit had a bit of a hiccup in the supply lines.  We'd turned in our M1911A1's and all the ammo and drawn 9mm in anticipation of being issued new M9's.  Except the M9 was having some sort of production stoppage and there were no pistols to issue us.  We were scheduled to leave for the West German-Czech border any time now to cover a unit there that was going to Graf for training.  We got permission to hit the rod-and-gun club's gun shop and order, "anything that shoots 9mm," and we'd be compensated for the purchase up to some amount I don't recall.  I bought a Glock 17; my first gun!  I chose it because it held 17 rounds, that's more than a Beretta so better!  Someplace in here is where I learned 17+1 too.  I was just barely 20 when I injured myself in a fall from a tank and had to sell the gun before returning home, had to be 21 to bring a handgun back with you from Germany in those days.

My first brush with gun control.

I got my medical discharge, my service connected disability, vocational rehabilitation and a stipend.

I wanted my Glock back.

But this guy wanted to buy "a gun".  Because I was the person he knew who knew the most about guns, he asked what would I recommend.  It came down to a Mini-14.  I've never had a problem with 5.56 as a killer and the Mini seemed like a good gun from what I had available to read.  His worked well enough that I bought my own, and so did a couple more of our friends.  We practically standardized on the Mini.

Then I bought a replacement for  my Glock 17.

At this point I an now a gun owner, but not yet a gunnie.

That moment happens in late 1993.  The Brady Bill and Assault Weapon Bans get passed.  I have a, "what did I do," moment since not a single one of my firearms had ever shot up a school yard.

In response to the AWB I built my first evil black rifle, an L1A1 from a parts kit on an Entrèprise receiver, literally days before the ban took effect.

This marked a dual change.  First I became interested in politics for the first time.  Second I started really looking at how guns work and understanding the differences between the types of actions.  I wanted to touch and feel and taste the differences and variations.  Then I was a gunnie.

STFU

Lupe Fiasco...

You couldn't even be bothered to vote and now you are complaining that the outcome is not to your liking?

Wow.

You had your chance to influence the results in November 2008 and 2010; yet you stayed home.

You can put a sock in it now.  Politics is for participants, not observers.  Either participate or shut up and watch us.  It's not like getting registered to vote and then voting is difficult.

LOLS

The conundrum

A real problem I have about convincing people about my position is they don't care.

I can post and talk all I want.  They don't read it or they don't listen.

If they read or listen, they don't see how that particular issue affects them NOW so they don't care about it.

Trying to impress upon them how one thing will cascade fail into another until it does affect them is damn near impossible.

Like property rights.

Remember when you were a kid and your mom told you to clean your room?  This is an example of that room not really being yours; it's your mom's room and she is just letting you use it.

If someone else can tell you what to do with your property, it's not yours; it's theirs.

This is insidious!  How long the grass can be, what kind of grass can it be, what color can you paint the outside, can you work on your own car in the drive, etc etc etc.  In some places you can opt out by not buying in a place that has a homeowner's association with those rules.  In other places it's the city that's making those rules.  In both cases the rules can change literally overnight and you don't have any recourse until next election (and likely not even then).

The simple cascade that we've seen run for real, not a theory any more: Guns.  First there's registration, then no more sales of a type, then confiscation of a type.  Doesn't happen?  Show me your semi-automatic AR-15 with a magazine you can remove without tools with a pistol grip that's legally owned in California.  The first thing gets you accustomed to the state telling you how you may own something.  Once they get you used to them telling you that, you don't even notice that they change from how to if.

This is one of the reasons that many diverse groups are fighting so hard to keep the government boot off the internet's neck.  First they'll tell us how to use it, then they'll decide if we can.

Need another example?  Remember free speech?  First political correctness forces us to reconsider HOW we say something.  Now it is making it impossible TO say something.

But you didn't read this far.  None of the above examples affected you, so they don't matter.  But wait, dear ostrich, your ox will be gored; and don't look to me to say anything but, "I am Cassandra."

Sarah Palin.

Have you seen Being John Malkovich?

There's a scene where John Malkovich enters the tunnel into his own mind.  Every person he encounters there has his head and says nothing but, "Malkovich."

That scene sums up how I feel about Sarah Palin.

Sarahpalin.  Sarahpalin Sarahpalin. Sarahpalin Sarahpalin Sarahpalin Sarahpalin Sarahpalin Sarahpalin Sarahpalin Sarahpalin Sarahpalin Sarahpalin Sarahpalin Sarahpalin Sarahpalin Sarahpalin Sarahpalin Sarahpalin Sarahpalin Sarahpalin Sarahpalin Sarahpalin Sarahpalin Sarahpalin Sarahpalin Sarahpalin Sarahpalin Sarahpalin Sarahpalin Sarahpalin Sarahpalin Sarahpalin Sarahpalin Sarahpalin Sarahpalin Sarahpalin Sarahpalin Sarahpalin Sarahpalin.

I don't get it.  I really don't.  Other than abortion, I really don't know a thing about her positions on issues.  She's not running for any national office, why is she getting national coverage from the legacy media like a candidate.   She's not running for any national office, why is she getting national coverage from the new media like she's some sort of knight that will slay the evil democratic dragon?

I don't get the hate.  I don't get the love.

Quibbling about terminology.

If I walk into a gun show and find me an MG.34 for sale and I desire to buy it I can, indeed, do so without passing a background test.

The sale is not the same as the transfer.

The seller is not going to even start the transfer process until he's got funds in hand.

At this point it's sale pending transfer approval (and that requires the background check).

Just like a sold sign on a house, it's sold unless something stops it.

Also like that sold sign, it's weasel wording.

What I did this weekend...

Beyond the Fold we have pics.

Inverse Relationship

I find that my ability to express myself is in inverse proportion to how much I care about the subject at hand.

I can write eloquently and at length on topics I could care less about.  This is handy for getting a passing grade in college.

I have a great deal of trouble writing or speaking about things that matter to me because these topics are so clear to me that I have lost the path I took to the clarity.  I can not build the tools that will build the tools to make the lens that I see through.

I've lost the process and that makes it very difficult to guide someone else to the clearing to see the stars.

I am standing in that clearing, looking at the glory of the universe with my telescope and talking to you on the cell phone saying, "I'm in the clearing, in the forest, just off that road past that place where there's this sign.  Why do you keep telling me you can't find it?  IT.  IS.  RIGHT.  HERE!"

I'm going to be making an honest attempt to retrace my steps and show you how I got here.

It's not going to be pretty or easy, but I think it will help.  Both of us.

D+ 24,471

Grab 100 pounds of something, you can use a back pack if you want.

Find a football field.

Stand in the endzone and imagine there's someone in the bleachers at the opposite end with a machine gun who wants to shoot you.

Imagine running from where you are now, to where he is.

Imagine the distance being three times longer.

You do not have to imagine how open and exposed you are because Omaha Beach and a football field have the same level of cover and concealment.

Markets

Why do I say that capitalism works?

Because whenever there is a demand for something, a market for it emerges.

EVEN IF THE PRODUCT OR SERVICE IN QUESTION IS ILLEGAL.


Perhaps especially if it's illegal.

This is why I am kind of ambivalent about some of the gay marriage things.  The hill that some pundits have chosen to die on is that getting gay marriage will give them the same rights as other married people, like insurance.

Have they considered that the insurance company has already decided that there's not enough demand for this service to make it worth providing?  I was reading the other day that homosexuals are just 1.2% of the population.  That's a pretty small market, really.

I think that the gay community should, perhaps, embrace a bit of libertarianism here.  Why is it up to the government to force insurance companies to treat your relationship like a marriage?  For that matter, why does your relationship need governmental approval?  I don't think that it does, and 1.2% of the US population is still 3.6 million people; convince the insurance companies to make policies that benefit you.

Perhaps the only place the government has in a marriage is tax breaks for kids.  Other than that it's a contract and should be handled as such.  It's right in the etymology of the ceremony.  Marriage vow.  Vows were deadly serious verbal contracts; binding forever.

Going back to that might not be such a bad idea.  Of course, the puritans will have to contend with marriage contracts that allow for multiple spouses, same sex relationships and all manner of complications that sentient people can dream up.

Joel Rosenburg

en memoriam, dammit!

Wow.

On comment I've read about this:  Never let a Gurkha think he's only got fighting to the death as his only option.

Article.

I wonder how many more he would have killed if he'd had his kukri on him.

GURPS: SEAL's in Vietnam 1/35 Character Study.

This is Ensign Dietrich, we've seen him before as I worked on the figure.

He started here:

Progressed through being painted:

And now he's got a base with some scenery:

Notice the sling!  I have to say that brass foil is vastly inferior to the lead foil we used to be able to get when I was in high school.  Damned health and safety assholes.

I also hate advances in photography.  This guy looks great in person, but the illusion is not so apt with mega-macro engaged.

Immigration

Again.

One "feature" of this blog is that I "talk out loud" to myself and the ideas develop and refine.

I am opposed to illegal immigration and support some pretty harsh measures to prevent it.

BUT.

Let's be realistic for a bit here.  Mexico has an illegal immigration problem on their southern border too; and they employ some very harsh methods that are ineffective.  So; keeping "them" out isn't likely to work here because we have a much larger border with Mexico than Mexico has with Belize and Guatemala combined.

I guess I need to state what it is about illegal immigration that bothers me.  It's that most of these illegals are coming here to be Mexicans.  I don't think I would be bothered in the slightest if they were coming here to be Americans.  I don't think I would NOTICE if they were coming to be Americans.

But they are Mexican and remain Mexican and show no intent of assimilating and becoming Americans.

I think the real cure to our immigration problem is to take steps to ensure that newcomers start becoming like us rather than accommodating them.  Eliminating ethnic ghettos and enclaves would serve.  Yes, children this means Miami will cease to be the largest city in Cuba.  A lesser variation is that New Jersey will also stop being the largest province of Puerto Rico.

This is not racist!  This is nationalist.  The nation-state model works and we need to return to it.

Abandoning the nation-state is pretty much the same disaster that going full libertarian anarchy is.  It's doomed to fall to the first thug who doesn't follow the rules.  Islam surely welcomes the fall of the nation-state model; and that's a much larger problem to someone who values freedom of religion and other rights.