31 October 2017

Got To Pick A Name

I have friends coming out of the woodwork (PUN!) offering to help me buy the tools.

They're not talking to each other and spreading the load, and only one has actually ponied up actual currency...  But the tools will be coming as soon as the bank recognizes the transfer.

But the venture needs a name.

Checkered Past was my first thought, but that's a really common name for lots of businesses.

Carpetbagger Carving?

Suggestions?

Willard Should Be Happy

I put the A2 flash-hider back on Kaylee; removing the AccTac 3-prong.

I'd originally bought it for looks, it remained on the gun just to tweak Willard's sensibilities.

I decided that the joke had run its course and put the very M4 carbine appropriate A2 hider back on.



Despite reams and reams of ad copy being written on the topic, the A2 is an excellent flash-hider.

It's been proven again and again, to the dismay of people selling more expensive muzzle devices.

If Only

If only it were mandatory to register any vehicle which will be used on a public roadway.

If only it were mandatory to obtain a license to operate such a vehicle before driving it on a public roadway.

Probably keep them from being used for criminal activity.

Why Am I Not Shocked


Oh. My. Gods.

NOW can we use water-cooled and belt-fed?

We Don't Need More Victim Classes

This is going to seem insensitive, but I've read this refrain before.

Someone experiences something beyond the pale, it leaves them a wreck.  It leaves them unable to function in normal society and endure the everyday things that culture does.

But do I need to change what I'm doing because it might be hard on someone who's been broken by a genuinely traumatic experience?

No.

Because that's not where it ends.  We will have to further reduce our activities so as to not offend those who think they've experienced that trauma, or are related to someone who has experienced it.

So I am saying, "No!"

No, I wasn't the person inflicting the trauma.  No, I will not change what I do to sooth their nerves because I've already seen what the accommodation leads to.

No, we don't need another class of victim to worry about offending, who can come to rule every aspect of my life because someone who isn't me did something morally and legally wrong.

Want to fix this?  Get that victim into therapy so they can endure the world around them rather than demand the world change to suit them.  Find and arrest the criminals for what they did.  Convict and punish the criminals.

I know this comment will have the same effect of a turd in a punch bowl, but it's simply yet another straw on the camel.

30 October 2017

Punkin' Carved!


It is officially Halloween!

I Has A Little Bit Of A Sad

No pumpkin this year.

The unseasonal heat late into October ruined the pumpkins before we could get to carving on them.

Always next year!

Commitment

The much talked about purchase of checkering tools is in progress!

Got to get some practice pieces to change from perfectly useable material to firewood.

What could go wrong?

Reading up on the process, really not much.

It's simple, and a matter of feel that you acquire from doing it.  Thus the practice.

Willard has two things in the immediate queue.

The smoothie Star-B grips and a replacement for his FUGLY the Bear stock.

I'm prolly going to attack the smooth stock and grip on my Marlin too.

29 October 2017

Busy Weekend

First, helped JT get his transmission/differential assembly back in his car.


The helped Robert move his parted out frame to storage.



The frame is still for sale as shown!  $2,500 you pick it up.

28 October 2017

Boo Fucking Hoo

"Bergdahl has said he was caged, kept in darkness and beaten, and that he tried to escape more than a dozen times before President Barack Obama brought Bergdahl home in 2014 in a swap for five Taliban prisoners at Guantanamo Bay."  -- LINK

First, it was a shitty trade.

Second...  Hey Fuckface, if you'd... oh... I dunno STAYED AT YOUR FUCKING POST then you would not have been caged, kept in darkness and beaten.  Also you wouldn't have needed to escape even once, let alone a dozen times.

Eddie Fucking Slovick did less than you and he got executed for it.

For the record: I'd decided that this thing is a traitor long before Donald Trump even announced his candidacy, let alone won the nomination.  To suggest that it is The President coloring our opinions about it is a desperate attempt to save a fellow traitor from justice.

27 October 2017

142nd Fastest Gun In The West

This song was surprisingly hard to find!

Useless Appendages


Yugoslavia was an enthusiastic user of rifle grenades, and oddly for a nation that was more or less Soviet in its rifle issue; their grenades were NATO spec.


The AK is wrong for this attachment.  A proper Yugo AK for a grenade launcher has a grenade sight that's also a gas cut-off.

Silliness

Because Trudy has a charger guide...

I bought a .30-06 six-pocket bandolier, with chargers and inserts!

Sixty rounds on clips, ready for the roaring-twenties Zombie Apocalypse.


Pathetic

Drifting at sea for five months because your engine died.

ON YOUR FUCKING SAIL BOAT!

Give.
Me.
A.
Fucking.
Break.

Oh, and it's not better if it turns out they were able to make headway under sail.

That means they were completely unable to navigate.

To me the entire idea of a sailing ship is to SAIL.

If you're going to embrace the old ways of powering your vessel, you should also learn the old ways of navigating it.  Sextant, hard-print charts compass and a chronometer.

Everything Wrong With German Tanks

26 October 2017

There Ought'a Be A Law

It should be mandatory for The Constitution to be printed on coarse grit sandpaper.

What way when politicians wipe their asses with it, it at least hurts.

As Was The Style At The Time

I have a post in drafts that wanders like the Abe Simpson Onion-In-My-Belt story.

Does this mean I've officially crossed the "old man" threshold?

25 October 2017

Small World

Sometimes the Godless Furriners forget that they are not the only Godless Furriners from their home country.

I'm a believer in reinventing yourself once you've moved a long distance, but you have to remember where you came from.

If you don't, someone will be along to mention it someday.

It cuts through the bombast and pride to hear that their name is associated with toothless inbreeding "back home"!

With that hanging on your back, you understand why they'd seek the anonymity of America rather than remain in their home nation.

It doesn't help, though, when you meet someone who remembers them from back when who remembers the "good old days back home" differently.

Sometimes The Committee Process Works For Us

Linky (Thanks Miguel).

Considering that we don't seem to be getting SHARE, then dropping an anti-gun bill on us in the same session is tantamount to career suicide for any Retardlican foolish enough to advance a ban on bump-stocks.

I expect that there's 10 seats in the house which are going to have fresh faces after November 2018.

No What Now?

Laptops need hard drives.

The laptop being present without its drive makes my conspiracy whiskers twitch.

4180

Still going...

Literally cue the Energizer Bunny because it's their battery running it.


It's been on for nearly six months and it's exceeded the rated battery life by an order of magnitude.

I'm Not Conflicted

Bergdahl's lawyer says that jail time should be taken off the table to insure that the sentencing is fair?

I am OK with that.

I completely agree that soon to be former sergeant Bergdahl does not deserve prison for his actions.

If we can't find a willing volunteer to carry out the appropriate sentence, I will provide my own gun and ammunition.

We don't even need a squad.

We won't even need the conceit of a blank round.

I suspect that getting the firing party down to a division will be a trick if we accept volunteers though.

Help Me Out Here

How can you espouse democracy and condemn populism?

24 October 2017

I Know Why But Do You?

The F-4E Phantom with two J79-GE-17A engines making 17,845 pounds of thrust each can make mach 2.23.

The F/A-18E Super Hornet with two F414-GE-400 making 22,000 pounds of thrust each can only make mach 1.8.

This kind of puts paid to the argument that the Phantom is a brick with wings, it's actually very refined aerodynamically.

Something else that surprised me looking up those numbers; the Super Hornet is heavier than the Phantom.

The empty weight of the F-4E is 30,328 lb., gross weight is 41,500 lb. and max take-off is 61,795 lb. giving 20,295 lb. for payload.

The empty weight of the F/A-18E is 32,081 lb., loaded weight (fighter configuration) is 47,000 lb. and max take-off is 66,000 lb. giving 19,000 lb. for payload.

I am not sure of how gross and loaded weight differ.


Timeline



This is interesting.

23 October 2017

Oh, BABY

I wants one.



In answer to SayUncle...

One stamp.  Machinegun.

An MG can also be a destructive device without an additional stamp.

Bofors guns are the same.

Update and edit:

Just about every "real" round is going to need its own destructive device paperwork... that can get out of hand fast.

What About Everything?

On average 151,200 people die every day, world wide.

That's 55,188,000 a year from all causes.

In 2016, 2,626,418 of them were in the US.

Top Ten Causes of Death:

614,348 are from heart disease.
591,699 are from cancer.  Fuck cancer.
147,101 are from chronic lower respiratory disease (COPD).
136,053 are from accidents.
133,033 are from strokes.
93,541 are from Alzheimer's disease.
76,488 are from diabetes.
55,227 are from the flu and pneumonia.
48,146 are from kidney disease.
42,773 are from suicide.

688,009 died from something not listed above, but in a category smaller than suicide.

IndieGoGo Is Anti-Gun

Just in case you don't get over to The Firearm Blog.

Here's a link.

While they appear to have disclosed their position long before AFLoader started their funding campaign, they also appear to have been anti- for a long time.

It's hard to not think that the whole world is against gun owners when you can't sell many things on ebay.  You have to take great pains to not reveal what you're paying for on PayPal or they kill your account.  You, increasingly, cannot show your videos on YouTube unless you completely donate them to the aether.

You cannot get speculative capital via Indigogo.

It's of some concern to me, I'm looking to start a gun related business at home checkering stocks.

Notice that Indigogo doesn't make a distinction between good guns and bad guns like other anti-gun organizations do?

Day Late

Longer than a day, it will be...

I didn't post a picture of a 10/22 on 10-22 because I don't own one.

Harvey does, but I don't.

Lacking Skills

The Lovely Harvey decided, yesterday afternoon, that we would be remodeling The Boy's bedroom.

He's kicked a fair number of holes in the sheet-rock of the walls over the years.

We've replaced that with 40" of wood paneling.

In her mind, Harvey, thought this would take three hours, tops.

It was more like 11 hours, including an hour going to Home Depot to get the stuff she didn't realize we'd need, like base-boards.

We still need to paint, but that's in HER wheel-house.

Even unpainted, it looks a lot better in there.

I'm hurtin' though.

Thursday I chased The Boy about a mile in a pursuit that culminated in his going to the hospital for an intensive drug evaluation.  He gets to come home tomorrow.

His cocktail was definitely all wrong.

The deputies who came to help were excellent with him and he almost immediately requested to go to the hospital instead of home.  He knows something is wrong and doesn't like the wrongness.

One of the responding deputies was the same one who arrested me back in February.  He was thrilled to find that charges had been dropped in my case.  He even gave me a ride home.  He was also thrilled that there's no animosity on my end.  I pronounce, now, that if I get him where I can talk to him off duty I would like to buy him a drink and continue our discussion about guns!

It's hard to post to your blog when you're committing carpentry.

21 October 2017

Direct Impingement

Ruger's Mini is direct impingement.  Real direct impingement, unlike the AR which isn't really.


That's a spigot, no moving parts.  No piston.

That's the cup the spigot spits into.


Buck Horn Delete

Connie is down one rear sight to have the proper number, of one, remaining.


I filled the dovetail with a handy Lyman part.


Now I need to find a range to zero her on, since the building my local range was in has been, effectively, condemned.

Anyone need a factory buckhorn for a Marlin 336 series in blue?

Trump To Declassify Kennedy Assassination Files

Read all about it!

I'm betting Col. Mustard, with the pipe, in the conservatory.

Free Fall

Reading this reminds of my flight home from being in the Army.

We'd just taken off from Philadelphia.

I was in the aft row with a stewardess flight attendant strapped into a seat on the bulkhead facing up the aisle (DC-9 or MD-80 IIRC).

A few minutes into the flight the engines powered back, all normal after climb out then suddenly I got light in my seat.

Then the engines spooled right back up and the zero G feeling got more obvious.

The pilot put the nose down and the falling feeling subsided.

During this, though, I looked over at the stewardess flight attendant.  Her face was a frozen mask of fear locked in a silent scream.

There was a real, "oh fuck, this is serious" moment there.

The pilot explained, once we were flying again, that we'd flown into unexpected windshear and drinks were on American Airlines until initial approach to St Louis.

I had a Jack and Coke.

Secret Desires


I think Marv has been captivated by the engraving on the Fugly Savage.

Take Me Bowling








And the head-to-head.



It seems so much SLOWER on video than it did shooting.

Take Marv Bowling







It could have gone better, but he doesn't hit the range as often as he'd like.

Dear Ruger

On the tactical Mini-30, you did a good job on the front sight.

Would it have killed you to include a rear sight that could be used?

The blurry gray ghost blob turns this $1,000 carbine into something that cannot compete with a $500 AKM clone, or a $400 SKS.

A 9" group from bad sights is unacceptable.

If you're real intent was for it to be scoped (using the included proprietary rings), why are there irons at all.  How robust the front sight is belies that idea.

Happily, Tech-Sights, has a solution.  For a mere $65.

Update:




I am sure the gun can do better, it just needs a better way to aim it!

20 October 2017

All Is Lost

Marv and I were watching the film All Is Lost.

We both comment that we'd like to learn how to use a sextant, because you never know when you can't use GPS for navigation.

Marv says, "first you need a good clock."

I reply, "The GPS app on my phone is an EXCELLENT clock!"

He just shakes his head sadly.

Did I say something wrong?

19 October 2017

Gripping


Marv now has some walnut stocks on his Not-Browning Hi-Power.  They're made by Herrett Mfg. and purchased through Numrich.

I think they compare favorably with my Craig Spiegel cocobolo's.

Been A Few Years

Time to update!

Fired is underlined.  Owned is bold.

  • U.S. M1895 Colt-Browning machine gun (Potato Digger)
  • FN Browning M1899/M1900
  • Colt Model 1900
  • Colt Model 1902
  • FN Model 1903/Husqvarna m/07 (9mm Browning Long)
  • Colt Model 1903 Pocket Hammer (.38 ACP)
  • Colt Model 1903 Pocket Hammerless (.32 ACP)
  • Colt Model 1905
  • FN Model 1905 Vest Pocket (.25 ACP)
  • Remington Model 8 (1906), a long recoil semi-automatic rifle
  • Colt Model 1908 Vest Pocket (.25 ACP)
  • Colt Model 1908 Pocket Hammerless (.380 ACP)
  • FN Model 1910
  • U.S. M1911 pistol (.45 ACP)
  • Colt Woodsman pistol
  • Winchester Model 1885 falling-block single shot rifle
  • Winchester Model 1886 lever-action repeating rifle
  • Winchester Model 1887 lever-action repeating shotgun
  • Winchester Model 1890 slide-action repeating rifle (.22)
  • Winchester Model 1892 lever-action repeating rifle
  • Winchester Model 1894 lever-action repeating rifle
  • Winchester Model 1895 lever-action repeating rifle
  • Winchester Model 1897 pump-action repeating shotgun
  • Browning Auto-5 long recoil semi-automatic shotgun
  • Stevens Model 520/620 pump-action shotgun
  • U.S. M1917 water-cooled machine gun
  • U.S. M1919 air-cooled machine gun
  • U.S. M1918 Browning Automatic Rifle (BAR)
  • U.S. M2 .50-caliber heavy machine gun of 1921 (the famed "Ma-Deuce" weapon)
  • Remington Model 24 semi-auto rifle (.22) - also produced by Browning Firearms as the SA-22, and several others
  • FN Trombone pump-action rifle (.22)
  • Ithaca Model 37 pump-action shotgun
  • Browning Hi-Power (Grand Puissance or GP), the standard sidearm of many military and police forces
  • The Browning Superposed over/under shotgun was designed by John Browning in 1922 and entered production in 1931
Copy paste your list to your blog.  Link back to this post.

18 October 2017

While That Is True

McConnell names failed Tea-Party candidates...

“What do they all have in common? They’re in private life, and a Democrat is in the Senate.”

That's true, Mitch, however what good has it done us to have Republicans there?

At least six supposed Republicans all but caucus with the Democrats meaning we need an apparent veto-proof majority in the Senate to have a bare majority in reality.

Fuck you Mitch!

Testing And Variables

Once upon a time...

The original AR-15 (Back when AR meant Armalite Rifle and not ARmalite™) had a 1:14 twist to the rifling.

The R601 went with Project Agile to southeast Asia and was well regarded.

However, it was quickly found that in the denser air that comes with air that's not tropically hot and humid 1:14 was insufficient to stabilize the bullet that would become 5.56mm M193.

Thus the rifling was changed to 1:12 and the model changed to R602.

It's not the only time 5.56x45mm has had this sort of issue.

Later when Fabrique National was developing what would become the SS109 round and establish the NATO standard for 5.56; 1:9 rifling was specified.

Temperature and humidity came into play again when it was discovered that the L110 tracer version of the round was unstable when you put it in arctic weather, so 1:7 was specified for tracers.

The US portion of this caused a bit of debate.  1:9 was sufficient for ball, but not tracer, so it was conceivable that the new M16A2 could have the slower rifling than the M249 because rifles hardly ever fire tracers.  Ultimately they decided that any 5.56 NATO weapon should be able to fire any 5.56 NATO round and thus the rifles and carbines got 1:7 twists.

GASP GASP GASP

Related to this old post.

If you're having so much trouble breathing you need to take two breathes every third word, you need to see a doctor.

If I notice your respiratory distress on your YouTube channel, MOVE YOUR BLOODY MIC someplace where it's not acting as a stethoscope for your blocked lungs!

Pasty White Comic Book Guy

Every comic fan has an obscure book they love that never quite made the mainstream.

Marvel's Black Panther was mine.

Publication was spotty and the stores only carried it on subscription or intermittently.

I was introduced to the character because I'd made a character in Champions with a lot of visual similarity with Black Panther and similar powers.

In no way was the background similar.

I've noticed, lately, that there's some people who're locking up about Wakanda being an advanced technological nation in Africa.

First: Comic Book.

Second: Given.

A world where people accept, without question, that a teenager can be bit by an irradiated spider to gain abilities similar to an arachnid; can't accept a nation in Africa manages to escape colonialism and thrive?

We're getting to the point where I almost have to coin the term "geeksplain".

Of course, I readily grok why Vermithrax shouldn't be called a dragon; but Drogon should.  Do you know why?

Related:  The Hobbit fucks this up too.  Smaug should have four legs and two wings.  How do I know?  The bloody author of the book included a picture!  Right there on Thorin's map.

Inversion

Maybe it's because we don't teach civics in school anymore.

Maybe there's a natural craving to be ruled in most bloodlines.

But it's been forgotten that the government in America is supposed to be below and beneath The People.

It is they and not we whom are supposed to be the subjects.

We've lost that, and I'm not sure how to get it back.

17 October 2017

Useless Data

SayUncle links to this.

The data is disjointed and spread oddly.  It specifically excludes people who were dead before making it to the hospital and (almost by definition DUR) people who didn't bother going to the ER.

190,396 people went to the ER with an injury from a handgun from 2006 through 2014.

31.4% were an accident.  59,784.34 people, 6,642.70 per year.
54.9% were from an assault.  104,527.40 people, 11,614.16 per year.
9.9% were from a suicide.  18,849.20 people, 2,094.36 per year.
3.8% were "who knows how or why a handgun perforated them".  7,235.05 people, 803.89 per year.

41,500 people went to the ER with an injury from a shotgun in this time period.

??? people went to the ER with an injury from a hunting rifle in this time period.

??? people went to the ER with an injury from a military rifle in this time period.

457,492 people went to the ER with an injury from "other" guns in this time period.  I think.  I can't tell.

So I decided to read the linked Health Affairs study.

190,396 with a handgun wound.
41,500 with a shotgun wound.
14,256 with a hunting rifle wound.
457,492 with a gunshot wound, but no type of gun associated with the injury.

Notice a lack of "military rifle" here?  You have to back-track the number from "Of the patients injured by a military rifle, 56.9 percent (722 patients) were injured unintentionally."

1,269 with a military rifle.  Over nine years... 141 per year.  It is not clear if this 1,269 is part of the other categories or not, so I counted it as "in addition" in the total below.

Breaking that down:
56.9% were an accident.  722 people, 80.22 per year.
34.4% were from an assault.  436.54 people, 48.50 per year.
3.9% were from a suicide.  49.49 people, 5.50 per year.
4.8% were "who knows how or why a military rifle perforated them".  61 people, 6.77 per year.

This all seems so very scary... but...

48.0% of these ER visits end with the patient being discharged for home.
7.7% get discharged to get additional care.
37.2% get admitted.
5.2% die.

8.3% die if you add those who died after admission.

Of the 704,886 ER visits from a firearm injury, over nine years, just 58,505 died.  6,500 a year.

Always keep in mind: about 99,000 people die each year from a disease or infection they contracted which was unrelated to their visit to a hospital.

Yes, blood dancers, it takes years of gun violence to match secondary infection deaths for a year.

Peeps For Old Peepers

Even before my eyes started getting old, I had trouble with the Bog Standard Mk 1 Mod 0 Buck Horn Sight.

Happily, on many guns, they're drilled and tapped for Marbles, Lyman or Williams peep sights.


Today we have an old, before the change to aluminum, Lyman 66LA rear sight.


It's got more than 45 minute of angle worth of adjustment, and still needs to be zeroed.



16 October 2017

A Great Day

It will be a great day when our schools get all the money they need and the NFL has to hold a bake sale to buy a stadium.

Malfunction

Yesterday on my first string of fire, my Browning Hi-Power had a failure to extract the fourth shot fired.

Up to that point I was four for four.

In GURPS, this result is impossible.

The Malf number for a normal TL6+ firearm is 17.

So to get a malfunction, I would have had to have rolled a 17 or 18.

Since we established earlier that my effective skill at this event is a 13, a 17 or 18 should be a miss...

But I hit THEN it malf'd.

It did bring home that I need to work on some malfunction drills.

Because It's Fun

Gun stuff, particularly political gun stuff, can get kinda grim.

CCW and home defense has a deadly serious reason for being.

So much so that we sometimes forget to sit back and enjoy shooting for fun's sake.

We forget to do gun stuff that's simply enjoyable just to enjoy it.

Shooting bowling pins is **FUN** while it might have some practical value, I'm not in it for a purpose past having some fun.

Winning the match was certainly enjoyable, but I've had as much fun coming in dead last.

I love the digging for information about dimly remembered old guns.

I love the hunt for parts for them.

It's a hobby and like any hobby I'm enjoying it!

What grinds me down is the insistence that every gun have a purpose.  That if a particular gun doesn't have a purpose then you're wrong and should feel bad.

That its purpose could be to delight me by simply being owned is not valid to these folks.

I'm not going to stop liking things they don't like.  It's not going to happen.

Testing Protocols

I'm an engineering type and scientifically minded.

Anything can be quantified and measured, but you have to define what you're trying to measure and why.

What are you testing when you fire 2,000 rounds without cleaning a pistol?

What are you testing when you throw a rifle across an open field?

Why do these metrics matter? Do these benchmarks appear when the guns are being used for real?

I've said before that it really doesn't matter if a pistol can fire thousands of rounds without cleaning or lubrication if I'm only going to have 52 rounds on me. It's interesting, but what does the endurance test tell us?  Why isn't the author telling us what they're testing by performing this exercise?

What are we learning from throwing rifles? When do you expect that to come up? Dropping from chest high to see if something breaks seems more apt.

A rifle can be "tossed" across a field under combat conditions. The owner of the weapon will no longer be in the fight, so does the fact that his gun was still functional matter to him in any way? Your personal position on "is there an afterlife" matters here.

WHAT ARE YOU TESTING AND HOW DOES IT APPLY TO ANY SITUATION I'M LIKELY TO ENCOUNTER FOR REAL?

The fact of the matter is guns are a very mature technology and most of the problems which will cause problems for the end user will show up before you've emptied the first box of ammo most of the time. That doesn't sell magazines or get clicks.

Remember, we live in a world where a cheap-ass remarkably affordable High Point passes this bar.

Practical tests are kind of dull, and will be a lot more tedious to perform because they're dull.

Impractical tests lead us to rifles set up to excel at one particular need. They lead us to make decisions which hamper the weapon's use at a different application.

Reliability tests which run past the amount of ammunition which a platoon will carry teach us what again? InRange's mud tests are a great place to see that not all reliability tests are the same. The famously reliable AK was reduced to a straight-pull bolt action and the notoriously unreliable AR barely hiccuped.  Solid performers like the SKS and FAL said, "fuck this shit!"

The filth from firing hundreds of rounds is not the same as the filth of being carried for weeks on end. Carrying a gun in a pocket doesn't subject it to the same filth as carrying it in a belt-holster. (Do we want a lint moistened with sweat test? Ewwwwwww!) There's an essay from Lt Chomps on cleaning pervasive Namibian dust out of every conceivable orifice I need to commission.

Reliable in tropical conditions doesn't mean it's going to keep running in the arctic. A rifle which is fine in a temperate woodland might be a disaster in middle-eastern sand.

A pistol which eats 2,000 rounds at an indoor range could shit the bed on round two after spending months toted inside a waistband because the carrier didn't bother to check on the thing. Why didn't they check on it? Because they most certainly didn't fire 2,000 rounds, so there's no need to clean it yet!

A more apt test might be to carry the darn thing and ignore it for months and see if it can make it through all the ammo you're carrying.

What you're testing is what you are testing. If you're testing to see if a gun will fire 2,000 rounds without cleaning, what you're learning is whether it can fire 2,000 rounds without cleaning. Nothing more, nothing less. If you're testing to see if a gun will function after being covered in pottage-thick mud, what you're learning is whether it will function after being covered in pottage-thick mud; and that's all.  If you toss it out the door of a helicopter you're testing... um... well a gun that survives that is damned tough, but do I need a gun that durable?

How many rounds?

How fast are they fired?

How dirty are the test conditions?

What's the temperature and humidity?

Will the weapon be cleaned during the test?

Does the shooter have to return a functioning weapon or not?

Would I do this to a gun I paid for with my own money and intend to keep?

Do any of these matter?  If they do, why do they matter?  If they don't, why don't they?

If the gun can fire three magazines when it's cleaned and lubed; then it's cleaned and lubed between every time you fire three magazines and it can do that forever... but it can't fire 500 without cleaning...

Does that make it a bad gun?

Does it needing cleaned every 500 make it a worse gun than one that can fire 2,000?  Does it matter?

A Couple Of Questions

Today is the apparently the first day of stone crab season.

First, how do I get the crabs to smoke the joint to get them stoned?

Second, how do I keep the joint lit once I've convinced the crab that all the cool crustaceans are doing it?

Military Style Assault Rifle

Remember when I noticed the clip-guide on my Winchester?

Clip loading was that era's equivalent to selective fire.

A means to increase the rate of fire of the infantryman.

Missed Opportunity

I should have titled my bowling pin shoot victory as, "JMB For The Win (Literally)!"

Dangit, I'm coming up with comebacks to my own statements now...

15 October 2017

Shooter Bowling


Three heats of five pins each.

First heat started out well, but I had a failure to extract the 4th round, so I left a pin standing for a two second penalty.  I'm blaming ammo for that.  Cheap Magtech FMJ does this sometimes with this gun.

Second heat I managed to put my sights in the line of my bifocals and shoot all ten rounds allowed to get two off the table and three knocked over (3 seconds of penalty).

Third heat I shot clean!  And shot fast enough to go from mid-pack to second place.

First and second have a shoot-off for the trophy.  The shoot off is just knocking them over, not off the table.  I hit the table on the second or third shot and toppled the remaining pins.

I have to say, there's nothing wrong with an old FN High-Power for this kind of shooting.  I am so darned comfortable with the old familiar friend I am sure that it helps my shooting from just pure confidence.

Heroism

I think I should also admit that heroism is rare.

Millions of people have been in the US Military yet just a few thousand have been issued some sort of Valor award.

The very definition of the awards always include, "Conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of life above and beyond the call of duty."

It's exceptional.

It's why we should stop applying the term "hero" to anyone who puts on a uniform.  It dilutes the term and cheapens the sacrifice of actual heroes who did, and do, go above and beyond.

Interesting Perspective

Read this.

It reminds me that I have wondered how many people died in the Pulse Shooting while the cops cordoned off the area then did, essentially, nothing for more than an hour.

People who would be alive today if an immediate assault had been attempted, because their treatable injuries would have received medical care instead being left to bleed out on the floor.

It reminds me that you can't claim the mantle of being a hero if you cower behind cover while others are in the line of fire sacrificing themselves.

To be a hero you have to do something heroic.

Nobody has ever gotten a Bronze Star with V, Silver Star, Navy Cross or Medal of Honor for being in the rear with the gear.

Lots of guys have gotten them posthumously.

Being a hero can get your ass killed.  Accept the danger or stop using the title.

Officer safety should not be, "I'm good, fuck everyone else."

I Wonder What Brand Of Bumpfire Stock They Used

231 Dead In Somalia, so far.

14 October 2017

Marion Hammer Can Just Go Away Any Time

She's blathering on about shit again.

She's killed open carry and campus carry here in FL more than once while purporting to represent we gun owners.

She really represents The Unified Sportsmen of Florida; whom don't even have a web page.

Who are The Unified Sportsmen of Florida?

I know they don't like NFA.

I know they don't want open or campus carry.

I don't know where they get their funding.

I notice she's always referred to as "Former NRA President" and very rarely is her current billet mentioned.

I'm sensing skullduggery here and I'm not happy about it.

Speaking Of Terminology

You can't have an epidemic unless the condition is contagious.

Opioids aren't contagious, so not an epidemic.

Obesity is not contagious, so not an epidemic.

I think someone has forgotten that endemic and epidemic are not synonymous.

Maths Be Hards

1.4 MOA at 200 yards is 1.4 MOA at 2,000 yards.

The groups won't be the same size, the 2,000 yard one will be ten times larger, but it's the same MOA.

LEARN THE DAMN TERMS AND WHAT THEY MEAN!

The Past


No Barrel Shotgun



I applaud the attempt.

13 October 2017

Pi Equals 3 In GURPS

Clicky makey bigger.

Not that different at all, despite more than 30 years of design separation.

All Relative

While I state that the Savage 110E is not as smooth as the Winchester 54, it needs to be said that it's still light-years ahead of a Mosin for smooth.

Come to think on it, at $175 including a cheap, but serviceable, scope; it's also a better deal than a Mosin.

Mosins are no longer the cheap route to get shooting.

But we knew this day would come, did we not?

In a couple of years I predict there's going to be a bit of scrambling while people try to remember where they stowed the take-off parts from their sporterized 91/30's as the prices get ever higher.

Let's Do This!

I've sourced the tools I need and have a partner buying them!

Now I need stuff to checker.

What do you need done that's 20 LPI?

Bearing in mind that I'm very inexperienced.

Experience comes from the doing, but I think this is something I can do that will help the family finances immensely.

Something I've noticed watching a couple of videos about it is how the layout kind of surprises people when they apply it.

I think I can print some overlays made with CAD to get the pattern placed on the part.

Thorough Cleaning

I ran some snap caps through Willard's Bear Ugly Savage 110E.

The bolt was sticky and dragged.

I took it apart and there was rusty oil inside.  Not a good sign.

The rust stained the metal, but you can't feel it with your finger.

Some Iosso polish cleaned up the stains some.

I put some LSA on it and put the bolt back together.

It's not near so smooth as my much newer 110 Trophy Hunter, but it's also about 25+ years older too, and was clearly abused.

Neither is near as sweet as the much older Winchester...

Putting The Fug In Fugly


Adorned with a Simmons Deerfield 4x32mm scope she tips the scales at 8.4 lb.

A steal for $175!

Even more if you like bears!


I think it deserves better wood and a better scope.  This is also my opportunity to begin begging for the funds to get checkering tools.  I seem like I have a lot of money showing off Willard's guns, don't I?

Under Pressure


On the left, a .30-06 case fired from Blanche the hundred dollar Mauser.

On the right, a .30-06 case fired from Trudy the turdy aught six Winchester.

Same lot of ammunition.

Notice the primer is a bit flatter on Blanche's brass?  I am not sure if this is something to be worried about or not.

Miguel The Gauntlet Is Tossed


Took Trudy to the range.


Five shots at a mere 25 yards.  With irons.  I need to get to a longer range and stretch my shooting skills.

Connie did not do as well...

Have I ever mentioned that I can't shoot buck-horn sights well?  There's the evidence for you.  It started off shooting to the left, so I tapped the rear sight right and got it to shoot to the right...

A Lyman 66LA should be arriving soon so I can stop shooting this rifle with buck-horns.


You Can SHOOT Them Too?

It has come to my attention that, in addition to accumulating them, you can also take guns to this place called "the range" where you can "shoot".

I am going to have to give this a try someday.

Have you heard of this before?

A Matter Of Perspective

Or, "My Gods, he's right!"

"We're the RINOs. The GOP is not for small government and constitutionalism." 
--Miami_JBT
This is an epiphany moment.

If the majority of a party is a certain way, can they truly be said to be the ones whom are merely using the name?

Friday The 13th

A Hallmark Holiday designed to promote the sale of machetes.

12 October 2017

Reorganization

I rearranged the ammo in the cans and the cans themselves.

I even relabeled them to reflect actual contents rather than former contents.

Turns out, like most of the time, making it neat makes it efficient.

Save A Local Copy

Curmudgeon found this link.

It claims that LVPD has arrested the security guard from The Mandalay Bay who'd been previously praised for finding the shooter.

I'm not the only one who's been linked to this wondering why it's just at CNN-International and no where else.

UPDATE!

Fake news.

MOAR Tin Foil Please!

I am having a thought...

I should just let it go...

It occurs to me that Bump-Fire stocks getting allowed by the BATFE, an agency which is traditionally hostile to gun owners, during the Obama administration (no friend to gun owners) might have been an attempt to play the long game to get semi-autos banned.

Did you notice the speed which Feinstein and her ilk had a bill "addressing" the problem ready?

I am sitting here and wondering why ATF would approve something which so clearly does what it does with a Democrat sitting president.

It makes me wonder.

Were they hoping for someone to go nuts with one sooner?

11 October 2017

Erin's Face Fixing Fund

Erin Pallette, our favorite bratty little sister, has apparently been mauled by a dog.

Here's the gofundme link for helping out!

NRA Bashing

I'm on the installment plan to a life membership.

I'm frequently upset with the NRA for not throwing their considerable weight around on issues that I'd rather they supported strongly.

Not so much so as to hate them.  I did that once, I'm over it now.

They frustrate me a lot.

They often don't step in on important court cases until someone else has them won, like the Second Amendment Foundation.

But they do one thing great, take the heat from the gun-grabbers while SAF is winning in court!

I can see, if not a team relationship a symbiotic one with the NRA and the others.

The NRA is pretty good at getting butts elected.  They're not good at peering into the souls of souless creatures like congressmen.

They're often quite good at seeing what way the wind will blow long before the wind-sock shifts.

I'm disappointed that they signaled a willingness to ban bump stocks, but they did it in an odd way.  Suggesting, much like I did, that we should have ATF take another look at them.

We need to look hard at the NFA now.

SIG-Braces don't exist in a non-NFA world.  It's a stock for a short-barrel rifle that's not a stock so we can call the SBR a pistol.

Remington Tac-14's don't exist in a non-NFA world.  It's very carefully proportioned to not be a Shotgun, Short-Barreled Shotgun or an Any Other Weapon yet still remain a Title I firearm.  It's a sawed-off shotgun that's not at sawed-off shotgun.

Bump-Fire stocks don't exist in a non-NFA world.  It makes a machine gun that's not a machine gun.

All three examples looked carefully at what the law says and made items which conform to the letter of the law, while raping the spirit the old way, dipped in resin and rolled in ground glass.

If I'd had my druthers the NRA would have put it's weight behind fixing the NFA a long while back.

I recall when FOPA was fresh news and the recommendation that the poison pill of the Hughes amendment would be fixed later and we should let it ride for a while otherwise we'd never get anything.

31+ years later and I am still waiting on anyone to even suggest we could get 922(o) removed.

I'm getting kind of old here.  Waiting.

That's why I am taking the position that if losing bump-stocks is a fait accompli, then we should get something out of it for a change.

Like national CCW reciprocity.

Like removal of 922(o).

Like removal of 922(r).

Like passage of The SHARE Act.

So, my bashing is limited to DON'T CAVE ON ME WAYNE!  GET SOMETHING FOR US THIS TIME!

Come back with your shield or on it!  FIGHT!

Personally I prefer the SHARE act to national reciprocity because the local carry laws will dictate how and when out-of-staters will be able to carry and states like NY and CA will fuck us every chance they get for every slightest infraction.  Much like they fuck us on the free-travel portion of FOPA already.

10 October 2017

All Lever Guns All The Time

Put a Primary Arms PAC14X scope on Willard's 1971, made in Belgium .308 Browning BLR.


It's an interesting gun.  The bolt is opened by a Spirograph® system of gears and racks.

The magazine for pre-81 guns is completely unobtanium.

Mounting the scope turned out to be an adventure.

Medium height Weaver style rings in 30mm are thin on the ground for less than $65.  At the place I finally found these I ended up having to explain that Weaver was a style of mounting AND a brand.

Gollum Gollum

Today is The Precious' tenth birthday!


I've put near 140k miles on her since she left the Corvette Assembly Plant, Mount Doom, Kentucky.

Nailed It!

What Willard ended up with:


An actual AR-10, Guatemalan style.


09 October 2017

Phrasing It Simply

I am curious.

If they have no idea what the motive of the Las Vegas shooter was...

How are they so certain what his motives WEREN'T?

Tempting Two Seventy

Did a more thorough inspection of the Savage 110 at the local pawn.

$205 out the door would take it.

$50 for a take-off stock from GunBroker.

$255 ain't bad for a .270 WCF Savage 110, long-action, staggered-feed, blind-magazine, top-bolt-release.

The Redfield scope that comes with it is actually a Deerfield...  Not so great, but we've accumulated several better pieces of glass than it while buying even BETTER glass for other guns.  This, Mom, is why we don't throw things away!

An E.R. Shaw barrel in the preferred-by-some-due-to-religious-fervor .30-06 is another $200.

$455 for a .30-06 Savage 110, long-action, staggered-feed, blind-magazine, top-bolt-release; is less tempting.  Especially when you can get a brand new .30-06 Model 111 Trophy Hunter for nearly the same price; Nikon scope, AccuTrigger®, detachable magazine and all.  It'd be fun though!

An oddity:


Does that recoil lug look bent to you?  How does that happen with a .270?

Found On Facebook




I found that on Facebook. A commenter, Joe Larkin, replied "Left?" so I let fly:

With regards to guns... It's far less common for someone who's conservative or Republican to demand any sort of law or regulatory change which will only apply to law abiding citizens because of the illegal acts of a single person.

That leaves the liberal and Democrats largely calling for such laws and changes, thus "the left".

It is also, invariably, the same people over and over who demand such laws, and they are very definitely on "the left".

But then, we people on the pro-gun side of this issue have only been dealing with them for decades. Not only can we predict whom will demand the laws be changed, we can predict with uncanny accuracy what those changes will be. Because it's the same changes demanded over and over.

Changes that will only affect the law abiding and never affect the "people" causing the harm.

Of note, when you start reading the history of gun control you end up seeing racism, tyranny, oppression and state-murder again and again. From "the left", Socialists, Communists, Democrats...

It might be worth absorbing the death tolls from crime and the occasional mass shooting when you compare it to the death tollls associated with National Socialist (Nazi) Germany, Stalin's Soviet Union, Mao's China and Pot's Cambodia. Those are just the finalists for the leader board too.

Thousands is fewer than millions. Thousands is fewer than HUNDREDS of millions.

Harvey Weinstein

The Weinstein story is actually much larger than Las Vegas because it points to structural problems with our media and how it works.

The so called 4th Estate, via a small number of rich moguls, like Weinstein, have captured so many outlets which inform the mass of our nation.

People like Weinstein are why our news is not neutral and objective.  No, it's not a new phenomenon, but only recently was it not widely realized.

People like Weinstein are why a huge portion of America have no national voice in entertainment.

As this develops, there will be more names to add to the "people like" list.

The enablers.

People we should pay attention to, and keep track of, to make sure they never gain a position of trust again.

Sounds

There was a lot of posting about what kind of gun(s) the Vegas shooter HAD to be using based on how it sounds.

Just in case you didn't know...

Guns don't sound the same downrange as they do when you're behind to trigger or standing on the firing line.

They also don't sound the same on a range as they do most anyplace else that isn't an open field.

Y+50 Viva La Muerte

No, I don't speak Spanish.

But today is a glorious day nonetheless!

Che Guevara has been pushing up daisies for fifty years!

Coincidentally, it has also been 50 years since he last begged, in tears, for his life.  Offering up, in Communist solidarity, anyone he could think of in exchange for his continued existence.

Apparently he was unaware that Bolivia has a tradition of summarily executing criminals and burying them in unmarked graves.  Paging Parker and Longabaugh, please pick up the red courtesy phone.

Don't forget to wear your Dead Che Day t-shirt!

08 October 2017

Six Simple Reasons

Do read the whole thing.

The Lovely Harvey Speaks

Here is my rant, it is pretty long.Lets see, first my heart goes out to everyone involved in the senseless violence that is happening. Second, I do not care what sex, color or gender you think you are or are not. Whatever we are all people, that being said people seem to only want to focus on the negative in their life and in the world. I get it it is hard to find good things to hold on to and believe in.

I want to start with our former president. I disliked him, but if I said anything I was a racist. No, I just don't agree with everything he did and I certainly don't agree with the way he fought for the American people to not see a birth certificate. There were sites and people that spoke out against him and there were meme's, but the former president did everything he could to stop those sites from existing. I have a teddy bear that says “no thanks keep the change” I find it amusing and it sits on my gun rack and I was a lucky one, because he had the site shut down. So, unless you were in direct company you didn't hear or see much regarding the dislike.

Now our current president. A lot of people dislike him and spew whatever they want and share all sorts of memes about him. Again I don't like everything he does or says. What I'm tired of is everyday having to not only hear the crap in different places but I can't even enjoy Facebook because individuals want to sit on their couches and do nothing but talk trash. Most of the sites I see things posted from are not legit sites. And anyone can make a meme. Enough already, besides do you really want the vice president running things if the president is removed from office. I know most that are yelling for him to be removed want the other candidate in office, yeah that is not going to happen during this four year cycle.

Next up religion. I am very thankful everyone believes in something no matter what it is and yes if you believe in nothing you still believe. I am very flipping tired of having 20 or more posts every day telling me I will go to hell if I don't share this image of Jesus. Or If I don't share or type amen I have no heart. Do you really think that crap is going to make someone change their beliefs? And why do you feel the need to shove your belief down my throat. I have blocked as many sites as possible and have unfollowed/ unfriended a lot of people for this crap. Seriously, if sharing a photo-shop picture of a cloud that you think looks like Jesus is all it takes to save your soul, I can make you a thousand of them and will send every one of them to you but STOP sending the flipping chain letters about it. I have my belief and it took me a long time to figure it out. If you really knew me you would understand and I would not have to see this sort of thing all day. I will be more then happy to reciprocate the gesture and send you my beliefs every day all day. What do you think about that?

Gay marriages. Let them marry, if you are in love have a great time. I hear people say will ruin the sanctity of marriage? Have you seen the divorce rate? Nothing can ruin what people don't really believe is a commitment anymore. Besides most gay couples I know have been together longer then the straight couples I know. While we are on that subject, lets talk about transgender. Everyone is worried about the bathroom they use. HELLO McFLY, this isn't something new, don't you think they have been using the bathrooms they are most comfortable in for years. Let that sink in.

Growing up every business had a sign that said “no shirt no shoes no service” another that said “management has the right to refuse service” and another that said “no animals.” Today if any business tries to deny service to anyone no matter what reason, you get sued and slandered all over the news. We hear the person or people that were refused service saying it was a racist or discriminatory thing. Very rarely do we actually hear a outcome. And put a chihuahua in a purse and it is a anxiety animal. Give me a break. I don't completely understand anxiety though I am learning but enough people. Let me be in a supermarket and see someone walking around with a snake because they have anxiety, that would not be a good thing. Just because something helps you doesn't mean it won't make someone elses anxiety increase.

There's what I call morons kneeling during the National Anthem. They are protesting violence you say? Stop it, they are on the job and are paid to do a job. If we protested while getting paid we would nave no job to go too. Some of you want to say, we kneel to our lord, I call BS. They aren't praying and TeBow got in trouble for praying but this is okay? Religion isn't allowed in workplace remember? And just for the record any parent that teaches their child to disrespect the flag like that and tells them they don't have to stand needs to pack and up and leave. You and your family obviously don't care about why or how we got the freedoms we do and don't care about those that sacrificed for your freedoms.

Over the years many friends and I that don't agree on certain subject have said we will agree to disagree. I don't know with the way the world is going if that is possible anymore. As good of friends as we may be or as much as we may love each other, some of these issues will end up separating us.
I grew up with a gun in the house. My pa hunted and has until just recently. Everyone seems divided by the second amendment.

When mass shootings happen, a lot of people who don't believe we should have guns start screaming for gun control or gun bans. If I recall correctly, these mass shootings the majority of the time, happen in places were guns are banned from being carried.. Before we get into that, if you look at the current laws, every madman involved in the shootings broke most of the guns law before they started shooting. So, putting more in place is only going to make it tougher for law abiding citizens to get them. Now a little off subject, McVay didn't use a gun, the 9/11 highjackings didn't use a gun. We we going to ban the devices and items they used? I didn't think so. That aside lets look at other murder's, Manson, Bundy, Casey, none of them used guns to kill their victims.

Now for those who have a difference in opinions, you say we need to ban guns, which means the men you have decide will protect us can have the guns and they will be sent to collect the average citizens guns by whatever means necessary? What about those that get killed in the confiscation of the guns? Is that just collateral damage, is that okay, where is the love now? Banning guns punishes millions for the actions of a few. Leaving guns in the hands of those that are suppose to protect us and the criminals. Criminals have already proven they don't care about the laws.

That leaves us with those that are suppose to protect us. We have protest after protest because of the excess violence and force that these men and women bring down on others and not just criminals. There are innocent people that are bullied, maced, man-handled and in some cases killed just because, name the excuse those that are to protect us what to use. I am not by any means saying all of them, in actuality it is probably less then 0.5% but those are the ones the get the attention. Many of them do their jobs well and I'm sure it is not easy.

My big guy (Ed- The Boy) was a victim of this, I'm afraid of what would have happened if I wasn't there. The Autistic child who was playing with a toy truck in Miami, whos care giver was shot because it was thought the child had a gun. Really? A friends 14 year old who was taken down and man-handled because he has autism and didn't know how to answer the questions he was asked. And you want to take my ability to protect big guy away from me.

Lets forget about that for a moment, lets talk about a category 5 hurricane. You want to have no way to protect yourself from looters and scavengers if a direct hit happens. Why don't you go talk to the victims of Katrina about what really happened. I'm sure there are those with nothing after the storm takes everything out would really enjoy being able to shoot a rabbit or a deer so they have food to eat. If we only leave it up to those that are to protect us, how many of us will die?

07 October 2017

Responsible

Just to take the "logic" chain all the way to its end...

If I, as a member of the National Rifle Association, am responsible for 58 deaths in Las Vegas;

Then people who voted for Bill Clinton, as Democrats, are responsible for 82 deaths in Waco and by extension 168 more deaths which wouldn't have happened without the first 82.

April 19th's

Since we're morbidly talking about the death toll of a single person firing into a crowd...

Shall we talk about Waco?  Where the Government, using guns, armored vehicles and fire, killed 82 people over the course of 51 days.

You know, the Government that gun-control people think should have all the guns?

They used guns to make a warrant service no-knock assault, then used guns and armored vehicles to keep anyone from leaving.

Now, shall we talk about Oklahoma City?  Where a handful of people made a bomb out of commonly available fertilizer and diesel fuel, loaded it into a rental truck and killed 168 people without a single firearm.

To date we have not banned rental trucks, fertilizer or diesel fuel.  We didn't even seriously discuss banning those things.

Why do I bring these things up together?

Because they are linked.  The Oklahoma Bombing was because a handful of people got so upset at the entire fiasco of The Waco Siege, they felt they needed to go-a-murderin'!

The second event really doesn't happen without the first one.

They are also related in that they killed more people than Las Vegas.

I am not saying that OKC was justified by Waco, but there is a causal relationship here.

Cheap Fudd Guns

Thanks to Bubba, there's a supply of guns out there that while perfectly serviceable, are ugly.

One of the local pawns has an older blind-magazine, top style bolt lock Savage long action in .270.

The action looks fine.

It's the stock that's ugly.  The wood is yellow and covered in a thick coat of varnish.  There's images of bears engraved in the butt and grip with "claw marks" for traction on the forearm.

The contours of the wood make it seem like they saw a picture of a stock, bought a 4x6 and started carving.

$225 for the rifle with a Redfield scope.  $69 for an economy grade California Claro Walnut, unfinished, 99% fitted stock.  Add labor and...  Nice rifle!

Maybe even worth more than what's spent on it.

Update:

You could even fish around GunBroker for a used stock too.  $55 buy it now would get you there.

06 October 2017

Out On A Limb

Despite what happened in Vegas, I still think the correct course of action is to violently oppose any attempt to ban bump-fire stocks.

That we should work to get the gun laws rolled back to 1933.

That carry of most any kind should be unlicensed.

Yes, I think that we should be able to buy a machine gun no more problem than buying milk.

There's a few products out there that really only exist because of the NFA.

Firearms like the Remington TAC-14 exist in their exact form because there's an interest in short-barreled shotguns.  The reasons that it's not considered either a Short-Barreled Shotgun or an Any Other Weapon are arcane and defy common sense.  C'est la loi!

Bump-stocks are another thing like this.  Deep down, there's people who want a machine gun but will never be able to afford one.  The same arcana that keeps a TAC-14 from being a Title II gun also keeps a Slidefire from making an AR a machine gun.

Someone who's not versed in this arcana sees sawed off shotguns and machine guns!

I keep hearing about how we can't even find the political capital to reopen the registry for new machine guns, how then will we find the capital to explain to the layman why bump-stocks aren't machine guns?

There's definitely a component of, "if they could understand, we wouldn't need to explain; but since we do need to explain they can't understand."

So we find ourselves, once again, in the lands of pragmatism.

Minimizing the damage.

Trying to inject spines into a famously invertebrate life-form; the Republican Congress Creature.

Shall we be honest about it and accept that the people who invented the bump-fire stocks were actually attempting to exploit a loophole in the law and make new machine guns?

We've been at this so long we don't recognize an actual loophole when we trip over it because people have been using the term wrong for such a long time around gunshows.

Well, I hate to break it to everyone, but the first reaction of legislators to a loophole exploit is to pass laws closing it off.  That's what we're going to have to fight here.

How shall we write this law to close the loophole without also banning semi-automatic guns?  I've read Dianne Feinstein's proposal, it will effectively ban semi-autos.  What's our counter proposal?

Do we have the capital to weather it out until the heat dies down and pass nothing?

To have ATF look at the issue and say, "nope still not an MG as defined by law"?

If not, why don't we have that kind of clout? Because I know we vote.

Using Existing Law

Since a bump fire stock is clearly not a machine gun by the very nature of how it works; but it does emulate fully automatic fire.

We already have a category for something that's neither fish nor fowl in the NFA.

Any Other Weapon (AOW).

Same background check as the other NFA categories.  Same tedious wait.  Not closed off by the Firearms Owner's Protection Act (FOPA).

Only a $5 transfer tax too!

So we have BATFE declare bump fire stocks AOW, then have an NFA amnesty for the existing stocks.

Ulterior motive: The amnesty written into the law is for any NFA item, so dust off those drop-in auto-sear plans dig up that stash of drop in auto sears your dad buried in the back yard!

All of this can be done with existing law.  Without trading away anything.

Without risking, once again, that the anti-gun side's stuff gets passed as black letter law while our stuff is promised for later.

05 October 2017

Beware Of Willards At Pawn Shops


Not a Woodsman.


2 lb. 1.8 oz. of JMB Goodness.  It appears to be a 1954 made gun.



As compared to the gun that supplanted it.  The stocks on this Challenger are wrong, those are for a Woodsman.  Got to fix that!

Trades

It has been suggested that we trade bump stocks to get national reciprocity.

I have another suggestion.

Trade bump stocks for repeal of the Hughes Amendment.

The Vegas shooter didn't use registered guns, did he?

Bump fire stocks were developed to scratch an itch that couldn't be reached because registration was closed.

If the registry had not been closed he wouldn't have been able to buy those stocks because the mother of invention would have been applied to something else.  Doing a bunch of Form 1's might even have gotten him a friendly visit from ATF, just to see what's up.  Maybe even in time to spot the psychotic break.

$200 stamp for a bump stock makes as much sense as the rest of the NFA, so they might just bite!

It Just Don't Work

Norway has all of the things that the left wants in the way of gun control.

Despite this, in 2011, 67 people were murdered with a firearm there.

That's nine more than Las Vegas, you will note.

Funny Because It's True


04 October 2017

3,675 Hours

Because I forgot to actually change out the battery on the BelOMO PK-01VS...

The test continues!

3,675 hours out of 400.

I simply cannot complain.  Under-promise, over-deliver is a fine business model, if you ask me!

Loophole

If we were really doing this 2nd Amendment thing like the framers were thinking, it'd look a lot more Swiss than what we're doing.

Everyone would have their issued service rifle and would have to show up for drill periodically with a requisite amount of ammo and gear.

But, just as any speech can be construed to be political speech and thus protected by the 1st Amendment, so are any arms protected by the 2nd.

It's a loophole, possibly intentionally inserted into the Bill of Rights.

Underscored, however, is we're supposed to have the same weapons as our soldiers.  US v Miller even says it plainly when it upholds GCA '34 and notes that a sawed-off shotgun isn't part of regular infantry kit.

If Miller had been busted with a Thompson or a BAR, the whole thing might have been scrapped right there.

Conspiracy Money

If the NRA was really controlling Congress, secretly or openly, there sure as fuck wouldn't be obscurata like 922r in there.

You Are Not A Soldier

You do not have a legally defensible means of firing back at someone firing from concealment over 600 yards away.

Sorry.

This is because you own every round, and the shooter could easily be within minute-of-panicky-return-fire with innocent people.

Yes, it sucks to have to take fire and not return it.

If you're just responsible for yourself:

Get to cover as well as you can, and stay there!  If you can escape clean, do so.

If you're responsible for someone else:

Get them to cover as well as you can, keep them there!  If you can escape clean, do so.

If you stay and help others, you're going beyond what you have to do.  But remember, we don't call folks who do that heroes because they're doing something safe.  Staying and helping is adding to your risk, and I applaud the attempt.

Moar Numbers

I just added it up: Since 1968 there have been about 1.4 million gun deaths in the US (avg 28,571 per year). Since the founding, about 1.3 million Americans have been died because of war (5,372 per year).

For mass shootings in the US since 1968, we have just under 1,000 deaths with 964 in 157 shootings for just under 20 a year.

To give a bit of perspective, 99,000 people die from an infection they caught at the hospital per year in the US. Yes, seeing a doctor is more dangerous than mass shooting.

For Democide, going with low estimates from Wikipedia...

In just under six years (1939 to 1945) Nazi (meaning National Socialist) killed off more than 9 million people. 1.5 million per year.

The Soviet Union killed between 3 and 20 million people between 1917 and 1992. 40,000 to 266,667 people per year.

Communist China killed approximately 4 million people 1949 and 1976. This number might be VERY low, some say it's upwards of 100 million. 148,148 per year.

Pol Pot's Cambodia murdered between 1.4 and 2.2 million people in just four years, 1975 to 1979. 350,000 to 550,000 a year.

Mass Shootings

Mass shootings are very infrequent, and rarely result in more than 10 fatalities.  But let's be thorough!  Perpetrators not counted.

Look them up and notice there's an astonishing number of .22's listed in the weapons and a remarkable concentration in places with very strict control; let alone most of them happening in gun-free victim zones like schools and airports.

1968: Orangeburg Massacre: 3
1972: Fountain Valley Massacre: 8
1974: Olean High School Shooting: 3
1976: Fullerton Massacre: 7
1977: Golden Dragon Massacre: 5
1979: Cleveland Elementary School Shooting: 2
1980: Daingerfield Church Shooting: 5
1982: Carl Robert Brown Shooting: 8
1983: Wah Mee Massacre: 13
1984: 49th Street Elementary Shooting: 2
           Bernie Goetz Subway Shooting: 0
           Palm Sunday Massacre: 10
           San Ysidro McDonald's Massacre: 21
1985: Sylvia Seegrist Shootings: 3
1986: Edmond Post Office Shooting: 14
            Miami FBI Shootout: 2
1988: Laurie Dann Shooting: 1
           ESL Shooting: 7
           Oakland Elementary School Shooting: 2
           Old Salisbury Road Shooting: 4
1989: Stockton School Shooting (Patrick Purdy): 6
           Standard Gravure Shooting: 8
1990: James Edward Pough Shooting: 11
1991: Luby's Shooting: 23
           Sacramento Hostage Crisis: 3
           Waddel, AZ Buddhist Temple Shooting: 9
1992: Bard College Shooting: 2
           Lindhurst High School Shooting: 4
1993: 101 California Street Shooting: 8
           Aurora Shooting: 4
           Brown's Chicken Massacre: 7
           CIA HQ Shootings: 2
           Long Island Railroad Shooting: 6
1994: Wickliffe Middle School Shooting: 1
1996: Frontier Middle School Shooting: 3
           Honolulu Hostage Crisis: 1
1997: Bethel Regional High School Shooting: 2
           Empire State Building Shooting: 1
           Heath High School Shooting: 3
           Pearl High School Shooting: 3
           Coy Wayne Westrock Shooting: 5
1998: Connecticut Lottery: 4
           Thurston High School Shooting: 4
           Trang Dai Massacre: 5
           US Capitol Shooting Incident: 2
1999: Columbine High School Massacre: 13
           Larry Gene Ashbrook: 7
           Mark O Barton: 12
           LA Jewish Community Center Shooting: 1
           Xerox Murders: 7
2000: Lex Street Massacre: 7
            Wakefield Massacre: 7
            Wendy's Massacre: 5
2001: Santana High School Shooting: 2
2002: Appalachian School of Law Shooting: 3
            LAX Shooting: 2
2003: Ennis Bar Shooting: 1
            Lockeed Marting Shooting: 6
2004: Chai Vang: 6
2005: Terry Ratzmann: 7
            Red Lake Shootings: 9
            Tacoma Mall Shootings: 0
2006: Capitol Hill Massacre: 6
            Goleta Postal Facility Shootings: 7
            Indianapolis Mass Murder: 7
            Seattle Jewish Federation Shooting: 1
            West Nickel Mines School Shooting: 5
2007: Colorado YWAM and New Life Shootings: 4
            Crandon, WI Shooting: 6
            Trolley Square Shooting: 5
            Virginia Tech Shooting: 32
            Westroads Mall Shooting: 8
2008: Atlantis Plastics Shooting: 5
            Covina Massacre: 9
            Kirkwood City Council Shooting: 6
            Knoxville Unitarian Universalist Church Shooting: 2
            Lane Bryant Shooting: 5
            Northern Illinois University Shooting: 5
            Skagit County Shooting Spree: 6
2009: Binghamton Shootings: 13
            Carthage Nursing Home Shooting: 8
            Collier Township Shooting: 3
            Fort Hood Shooting: 13
            Geneva County Massacre: 10
            Lakewood Shooting: 4
            Pearcy Murders: 5
            Pittsburg Police Officers Shooting: 3
2010: ABB Plant Shootings: 3
           Hartford Distributors Shooting: 8
           Penske Shootings: 4
           University of Alabama in Huntsville Shooting: 3
2011: Copely Township Shooting: 7
           Cupertino Quarry Shooting: 3
           Grand Rapids Mass Murder: 7
           IHOP Shooting: 4
           Seal Beach Shooting: 8
           Southern California Edison Shooting: 2
           Tuscon Shooting (Gabby Giffords): 6
2012: Aurora Shootings: 12
           Azana Spa Shootings: 3
           Chardon High School Shooting: 3
           Clackamas Town Center Shooting: 2
           College Station, TX Shooting: 2
           Minneapolis Workplace Shooting: 6
           Oikos University Shooting: 7
           Sandy Hook Elementary School Shooting: 27
           Seattle Cafe Shooting Spree: 5
           Webster, NY Shooting: 3
           Wisconsin Sikh Temple Shooting: 6
2013: Hialeah Shooting: 6
           LAX Shooting: 1
           Ross Township Municipal Building Shooting: 3
           Santa Monica Shooting: 5
           South Valley Homicides: 5
           Washington Navy Yard Shooting: 12
2014: Fort Hood Shootings: 3
           Isla Vista Killings: 3
           Marysville Pilchuck High School Shooting: 4
           Rosemary Anderson High School Shooting: 0
           Harris County, TX Shooting: 6
2015: Charleston Church Shooting: 9
           Chattanooga Shootings: 5
           Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood Shootings: 3
           Harris County, TX Shooting: 8
           Lafayette Shooting: 2
           San Bernardino Attack: 14
           Tyrone Shooting: 7
           Umpqua Community College Shooting: 9
           Waco Shootout: 9
2016: Shooting of Baton Rouge Police Officers: 3
           Cascade Mall Shooting: 5
           Citronelle Homicides: 6
           Shooting of Dallas Police Officers: 5
           FreightCar America Shooting: 1
           Hesston Shooting: 3
           Kalamazoo Shootings: 6
           Madison High School Shootings: 0
           Mukilteo Shooting: 3
           Pulse Orlando Shooting: 49
           Pike County, OH Shootings: 8
           Pablo Antonio Serrano-Vitorino: 5
           St Joeseph Courthouse Shooting: 2
           Wilkinsburg Shooting: 6
2017: Bronx-Lebanon Hospital Attack: 1
           Burnette Chapel Shooting: 1
           Clovis Library Shooting: 2
           Congressional Baseball Shooting: 0
           Fort Lauderdale Airport Shooting: 5
           Freeman High School Shooting: 1
           Las Vegas Concert Shooting: 58
           Little Rock Nightclub Shooting: 0
           Mississippi Shootings: 8
           Orlando Shooting: 5
           Plano Shooting: 8
           Sandy Attack: 2
           UPS Shooting, San Francisco: 3
           Weis Markets Shooting: 3