Articles by Herschel Smith

Via Hot Air, communication from what’s left of the U.S. embassy in Kabul.

U.S. government-provided flights are departing. U.S. citizens, LPRs, and their spouses and unmarried children (under age 21) should consider travelling to Hamid Karzai International Airport.   You should plan to enter the airport at Camp Sullivan. From the HKIA Airport South Traffic Circle, head east for 1km and turn right on to Camp Sullivan.   Please note that gates may change frequently and that we will provide updates as necessary.

THE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT CANNOT ENSURE SAFE PASSAGE TO THE HAMID KARZAI INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT.…

Please be advised that a significant number of individuals have registered and space on these flights is available on a first come, first serve basis. You may be required to wait at the airport for a significant amount of time until space is available…

Do not call the U.S. Embassy in Kabul for details or updates about the flight. Do not travel to the airport until you have been informed by email that departure options exist. We will continue to provide periodic updates to this message.

Mike McDaniel makes this observation.

The airport in Kabul is surrounded by the city—easy for the Taliban to surround and control—and has a single runway.  The Taliban has surrounded the airport.  They control all access, and up to 40,000 Americans are cut off behind enemy lines, and so are innumerable nationals from allied countries.  Our government has no idea how many Americans are actually there, and they’re telling them not to call, but to go to a website to “register” for permission to be evacuated and/or telling them to go to the airport(?!).

Bagram Air Base, which was everything Kabul’s airport is not—defensible–was evacuated and abandoned, and as throughout the country, all manner of military equipment including armored vehicles, fixed and rotary winged aircraft, munitions and weapons, was left behind.  The Taliban own it, all of it.

I was an enlisted man in the USAF during the cold war, not a field grade officer, not a general.  I run this scruffy little blog, but even I know when withdrawing from a hostile country, you first evacuate all American civilians and allies, then all native civilians and others, allies you promised to protect.  Who could possibly want another hostage crisis?  Then you fly out all our military equipment, everything that could in any way help our enemies, and if you can’t fly it out, you utterly destroy it.  You destroy all our facilities to deny them to the enemy.  Only then do you evacuate every American service member, maintaining sufficient air cover to ensure their safe evacuation.  And you don’t do it all at once.

Apparently, no one inside the beltway getting “woke,” reading Karl Marx and putting on lipstick had time to learn to perform a failure modes and effects analysis, or how to do MORT (Management Oversight and Risk Tree) analysis.  Or even to learn basic planning or logistics skills.

Finally, SedDef Austin says this.  “I don’t have the capability to go out and extend operations currently into Kabul.”  While U.S. troops are stateside sitting through gender bender classes, this chaos ensues and the SecDef hasn’t the “capability” to do anything about it.

Ponder that for a while.

A picture says everything about the state of affairs and the fear that grips the area.

Some of you will say “I told you so” concerning the brilliance of the 6.5 Grendel when we’ve discussed this in the past.  But one nice thing about this cartridge is that an upper swap combined with another magazine gives you another rifle.  Buying a 6.5 Creedmoor rifle, for example, means switching to a completely different rifle, i.e., an AR-10 rather than an AR-15, with all of its recoil, weight and nonstandard parts lists.

There is this recent article from Recoil.  Here is a fairly recent video.  AR15.com does a gell test with the 6.5 Grendel.

And finally, near the end of last year, Ryan Muckenhirn did a very good discussion of the cartridge.

Anyway, it seems like a good upper to have, as well as a legitimate White Tail cartridge. It didn’t seem to catch on as fast as the 6.5 Creedmoor, but it wasn’t a “flash in the pan” either.

News from the viper’s nest.

Every day that goes by further exonerates my choice for vote during the primaries and further shows Trump to have been a weak ineffective, confused, befuddled, and rudderless leader.

If the other two goobers would shut up, this would have been an absolutely great video.  I could listen to Ryan teach me for hours.  The two goobers made it just a great video.

Reuters.

TOKYO, Aug 17 (Reuters) – The Russian Kalashnikov AK-47 and its derivatives have long been the assault rifle of choice for militant groups because of their rugged design, but some Taliban fighters are trading them in for captured U.S. guns as Afghanistan’s government collapses.

Video and pictures published by the Taliban on Twitter and elsewhere show fighters carrying M4 carbines and M16 rifles discarded by Afghan army units. Other images show Taliban forces capturing abandoned government vehicles.

Because it’s a better rifle.

Via David Codrea, this summary at Reason.

The Government has failed to show that there is a reasonable fit between their stated objective of promoting public safety and the 10-day permit use period imposed by HRS § 134-2(e). The 10-day permit use period for handguns does not survive intermediate scrutiny….

[As to the 5-day inspection period requirement], the Government [again] wholly fails to demonstrate how the in-person inspection and registration requirement furthers these interests. It merely states that “ensuring that the registration information is accurate, ensuring that the firearm complies with Hawaii law, and confirming the identity of the firearm can be easily accomplished simply by bringing the firearm to the registration for inspection.”

This bald statement is not enough to meet the Government’s burden. “To survive intermediate scrutiny, the defendants must show ‘reasonable inferences based on substantial evidence’ that the statutes are substantially related to the governmental interest.” Here, the Government has provided no evidence whatsoever in support of its position. The Government has provided no legislative history speaking to the legislature’s reasons for amending the statute. It has not shown that inaccurate registration was a problem affecting public safety (or even a problem at all) prior to enactment of the 2020 in-person inspection and registration requirement, nor has it provided any studies, examples from other jurisdictions, or any other type of evidence suggesting that an in-person inspection and registration requirement would ameliorate such a problem.

In absence of concrete evidence, the only support that the Government offers is conjecture. Defendant asserts that in-person inspection and registration promotes public safety by requiring that the police directly inspect the serial number on the gun itself, rather than the number as reported by the buyer and (separately) by the seller on the permit. Specifically, the Government speculates that “[s]ome people might innocently make mistakes in transcribing serial numbers or other identifying information” or may be unaware that their gun’s identifying marks or other attributes have been impermissibly altered. And, the Government hypothesizes, individuals may not be aware of these errors or inconsistencies until they bring their firearm to the police station to have it physically inspected. But this hypothetical falls short under intermediate scrutiny. To meet its burden, the Government must “present some meaningful evidence, not mere assertions, to justify its predictive judgments.”

Thus, it once again appears that the Government’s only permissible argument is that common sense shows the law is reasonably related to its interest in promoting public safety. But the notion that in-person inspection and registration promotes public safety is not a matter of common sense. First, as stated above, in the absence of any evidence to that end, it is not a common-sense conclusion that mistakes in registration were a problem prior to enactment of the  in-person inspection and registration requirement. Indeed, there is redundancy built into the registration process even without the in-person requirement—both the firearm seller and buyer must provide the serial number and other identifying information about the firearm. As Plaintiffs point out, “it strains credulity that both a firearms store and a buyer would both fail to properly transcribe numbers or realize” that the gun has been impermissibly altered.

Second, as the D.C. Circuit pointed out in Heller v. District of Columbia (D.C. Cir. 2015), requiring individuals to bring firearms into the police station for in-person inspection and registration may “more likely be a threat to public safety [because] there is a risk that the gun may be stolen en route or that the would-be registrant may be arrested or even shot by a police officer seeing a ‘man with a gun.'” While these possibilities—like the Government’s hypothetical about mistaken transcription—are no more than conjecture, they demonstrate that it is not a simple matter of common sense that in-person inspection and registration promotes public safety.

Finally, it is again worth noting that Hawaii is the only state in the country to require in-person inspection and registration of firearms. As in the case of the 10-day permit use period, if it were truly a matter of common sense that in-person inspection and registration promoted public safety—or that misidentification in the absence of in-person inspection and registration was a problem—one would expect additional states to maintain similar requirements. The Government has failed to show that the in-person inspection and registration requirement is reasonably tailored to a significant, substantial, or important government interest. HRS § 134-3(c)’s in-person inspection and registration requirement does not survive intermediate scrutiny.

Reason ends with this: “Congratulations to Alan Beck and Stephen D. Stamboulieh, who represented the challengers.”

Stephen Stamboulieh is a friend of TCJ and I would like to say congratulations.  I’ve held for a long time now that the fertile soil for gun rights – and recognition of all God-given rights for that matter – is local and state.  The rapid expansion of open and constitutional carry across America has demonstrated this axiom right.

Fox News.

‘America Reports’ host Sandra Smith announces that the Taliban are going house to house in Kabul looking for Afghan Special Forces members who fought alongside the U.S. military

Uh oh.  That’s not good news for them.

I told my wife tonight that if we had been in Kabul, I would have told her months ago to pack a few days of clothes because we’re going to the airport the next morning.  The pace of the Taliban offensive and the corollary collapse of the ANA/ANP doesn’t surprise me one bit.  It’s almost as if I predicted all of this years ago.

Yes, I’m sure I did in my book-length blogging on Afghanistan.  I did indeed.

It sounds like they need to be schooled in prepping.

If the ANA SpecOps boys haven’t already left the country via automobile or some other way long ago, they’re in deep trouble.

News and views from South Carolina.

“For the law-abiding Concealed Weapon Permit owner, today is a very significant day because they can decide whether they want to carry open or concealed,” said Kershaw County Sheriff Lee Boan.

[ … ]

As valid CWP owners choose to open carry, Sheriff Boan is making sure his officers and dispatch personnel are trained to respond.

“When you get that call that somebody’s walking down the road or parking lot or something openly carrying a firearm, that’s not a crime. That’s not a crime,” said Boan. “We’re not going to investigate something that’s not a crime.”

What?

Has he been reading TCJ?  Because that sounds like something I’ve said many times before.  Yes, I’m sure of it.  Many times.

Good on him.  Instruct your 911 operators to ask the right questions: “Is he brandishing a weapon or is it holstered?”  “Is he threatening anyone with a weapon?”  “No, we won’t send a patrol to respond.  He isn’t breaking any laws.  Open carry is legal in South Carolina.  Good bye.”

This is the best way to save time and avoid wasteful encounters.

Shooting Illustrated.

In addition to recording a series of internal and external measurements, I visually inspect every barrel that comes into my hands from end to end, inside and out. Special attention is paid to the crown, feedramps, gas port, muzzle and bore. The crown is checked under high magnification for burrs, gouges or other imperfections that can cause projectiles to leave the barrel inconsistently, diminishing potential accuracy in the process. A magnifying glass or jeweler’s loupe and a good light will go far to help you see how this critical transition from bore to muzzle face has been cut. Most barrels have some form of recessed crown that are cut at varying angles, depending on the maker and barrel type. My experience is that the degree of crown is far less important than how cleanly cut and uniform it is.

Damage to a new barrel’s crown can be caused at any point along the way between production and installation and this is certainly not unique to the AR. Crown damage on any rifled barrel should be carefully evaluated to ensure it is not going to cause problems during firing. If the barrel arrived with an already-damaged crown, I would contact its source in hopes that they will exchange it for a new one before troubling yourself to fix it.

Flawed or damaged crowns can be cleaned up through the use of either hand crowning tools or a machine lathe. If you are only dealing with a single barrel, the most cost-effective route to repair is through a gunsmith. However, if you lack a lathe but are regularly dealing with banged up crowns, investing in a good hand crowning tool will pay for itself in the long run.

After checking the crown and if the muzzle is threaded, I always “chase” the threads with a properly-sized die to ensure they are fully cut and cleaned up. Just behind those threads, the shoulder is the next area that I check. If you plan to use a sound suppressor, this shoulder should be square with the bore and threads to ensure proper suppressor alignment.

This is true for both direct-thread suppressors and those that use QD mount-style muzzle brakes and flash hiders. If your muzzle device seats on the face of the muzzle instead of the shoulder, the muzzle face will need to be checked instead. I seldom see damage in these areas, but occasionally a barrel comes from the factory with a flaw that would prevent a muzzle device from seating squarely. I use a lathe to slowly spin barrels while I check runout [with gauges] on shoulders or muzzle faces, then remedy any flaws at that time. Again, a gunsmith or machinist can perform this check in just a few minutes and even if it needs to be re-faced, it is a simple operation.

Whether or not you have this check performed, I strongly recommend that at a minimum, you use an alignment rod to verify that your suppressor and bore line up correctly before live firing the system.

Sliding back along the barrel a few inches, we should find a gas port that is drilled at top-dead-center of the barrel when mounted in a receiver. Most manufacturers drill their ports once the barrel extension has been installed so that the index pin, which nests in the upper receiver’s index notch, actually performs its namesake function. Nonetheless, once in every hundred or so barrels, I find one that has the gas port and index pin out of alignment. If the misalignment is more than a couple degrees, there is a pretty fair chance that a properly timed gas block will result in reduced/restricted gas flow, impeding operation and increasing wear of the gas block itself. Unfortunately, there aren’t any great options to repair this problem. If you lack the correct tooling to install and remove a barrel extension, this manufacturing error is best left to a gunsmith or (preferably) the manufacturer to remedy.

A simpler and far more common problem is having an undersized gas port. A decade or so ago, barrel makers tended to oversize gas ports, especially on service-grade barrels. The prevailing wisdom being that it was better to have too much gas and keep the gun running rough and dirty than too little gas preventing it from running at all. It was left up to gas block makers and gun builders to figure out how to modulate the excess gas, especially when using a sound suppressor.

The situation is nearly the opposite today, as both match and rack-grade barrels are frequently sold with ports that are either undersized or only marginally functional as-is. Therefore, gun builders oftentimes must open ports according to the configuration of the gun and its intended use. Opening a barrel’s gas port is not difficult, but knowing how far to open it is a critical part of the process. I measure every gas port that comes across my bench and cross-reference it with a database of the 1000+ barrels I have previously measured to ensure that the size is appropriate for the length, caliber, gas system, gas block type, planned suppressor use and bolt carrier/buffer system weights.

Well, he’s a better mechanic that I am, he has a world of experience, and he has tools that I don’t.

Other than that …

While the Taliban was plotting…pic.twitter.com/Jeis0BRYZy

— Dan Scavino (@DanScavino) August 16, 2021

If he had been in Afghanistan, the Taliban would have beheaded him for being such a pussy.