Archive for the 'Firearms' Category

At this reddit/guns post?

By mounting the light directly on the barrel, he’s adding a secondary harmonic, possibly exacerbating a primary node or creating an anti-node, or creating nodes completely out of sync with other nodes, and fundamentally changing the way the barrel vibrates.  Someone needs to tell him to remove the light and figure out another way.

Yea, Rob.  Simple.  But not easy.

NRA Blog:

• Circa 1650 – The Kalthoff Repeating Flintlock: As Mike Blessing explains, the Kalthoff Repeating Flintlock came into production in the 1650s, seeing combat in the Siege of Copenhagen in 1659 and later during the Scanian War of 1675 to 1679 — 132 and 116 years, respectively, before the Second Amendment was ratified in 1791. While manufacturing and repair costs kept the Kalthoff out of mass production, it represents the reality that “high capacity” firearms are not a contemporary concept, as some models of the Kalthoff boasted magazines of up to 30 rounds – the same number of rounds in a true standard-capacity AR-15 magazine of today.

• Circa 1750 – The Cookson Volitional Repeating Flintlock: A lever-action breech-loading repeater, is one of many similar designs to make an appearance on the world stage beginning in the 17th century. The revolutionary mechanism at the heart of the Cookson repeater dates from 1680 and was originally known in Europe as the Lorenzoni System, named for Italian gunsmith Michele Lorenzoni of Florence. Long arms utilizing this system were produced in other European nations and in the United States until about 1849. The Cookson rifle dates from 1750 and features a two-chamber horizontally mounted rotating drum. After firing the rifle, the cycling process could be repeated until the two magazines, with their seven-shot capacities, were empty. Although other breech loading rifles were introduced in later years, the Cookson-type long arms were unique in their ability to fire multiple shots without reloading.

• 1777 – The Belton Repeating Flintlock: Philadelphian Joseph Belton’s repeating flintlock design reportedly boasted a 16-to-20 shot capacity, using the superposed load mechanism. Sources indicate there was correspondence between the inventor and the Continental Congress in 1777, as the he had reportedly been commissioned by the Congress to build 100 of his repeaters for the U.S. military, with the order being dismissed solely for cost purposes. This discussion presents strong evidence that the founding fathers were perfectly able to conceive of “high capacity” repeating firearms.

• 1782-1804 – The Nock Volley Gun: The close quarters of Naval warfare demanded a powerful, yet compact firearm that could provide abundant firepower. The Nock Volley gun fired seven shots all at once from seven clustered bores. This powerful rifle was issued nine years before the dawn on the Second Amendment.

They left out the wonderful Girandoni air rifle.

This is a wonderful and interesting rundown of the semi-automatic firearms available prior to and immediately after the war of independence.  Go read the NRA Blog article for more detail, as well as the context.  But I’ve explained the second amendment properly interpreted before (at least in my own view).

The second amendment discusses the right to bear arms and be free of federal interference in the context of the states’ desire to keep that interference from happening.  That is the historical milieu in which it was written.  The founders only needed one excuse to prevent federal government interference with the states on firearms, and they chose the most likely and obvious choice, i.e., the militia.  The second amendment is not a treatise on the foundation of liberty.

It’s an illogical jump to cast that as the only reason for the right to own and bear arms.  If you had discussed regulation on the right to own and use a tool of their trade to protect their families, hunt, and ameliorate tyranny with a colonial man, he would have buried you under the remotest prison.  God gave us our rights based on man being created in His image and the expected duty to work and subdue the earth to His glory.  The militia was a convenient excuse for a certain clause in one part of the constitution.  Limiting our rights to our understanding of that clause is a mistake.

And there’s more.

We don’t “hide behind” the second amendment.  It doesn’t grant us the right to own weapons.  God does that Himself.  The constitution is a covenant between men for how they will live together.  Like all covenants, there are promises and curses.

Look folks, if our wise founders had wanted the citizenry armed with inferior weapons to the king, they would never have said the things they did, fomented a revolution, or hid behind trees and killed, only to melt into the woods and mountains to kill another day, fighting a war of insurgency like none which had gone before it.

The founders ensured a covenant that codified man’s rights to firearms for the purpose not only self defense (which is assumed but left unaddressed by the second amendment), but for the second amendment remedy against tyranny.  There is no other sensible way to see it.

I notice that Kyle doesn’t shoot his rifle with the “aggressive plates forward” stance that seems to be popular these days. I’m not saying you have to, but that’s how I was taught and I find it comfortable with AR-15s. Of course, not so with bolt action hunting rifles or shotguns.

I’ve shot thousands and thousands and thousands of rounds through pistols, and I’ve never had this malfunction (perhaps because I only try to shoot higher quality firearms and ammunition). I’m very down on low quality ammunition, and I look on it sort of like putting cheap oil in your engine. Also, I’m very observant of my magazines, and try to keep them clean. But if you are subject to this failure, he gives you a way out.

PJ Media:

One of John Podesta’s emails released by WikiLeaks this week exposes how progressive elites seek to exploit the unwashed masses. The email features one of Podesta’s colleagues from the Center for American Progress admitting that the institutional left “conspires to produce an unaware and compliant citizenry,” ostensibly to impose their radical agenda on us without much resistance.

The correspondent is Bill Ivey of Global Cultural Strategies, “the online representation of the ideas, writings, and affiliations of author/consultant Bill Ivey.” He is an author trained in folklore and history, a trustee of the Center for American Progress, a former team leader in the Barack Obama presidential transition in 2008, and the former chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts in the Clinton administration.

In the email from March of 2016, Ivey expresses concern about the rise of “opinionated blowhard” Trump and frets because the “citizenry” seems to be awakening.

Well, we all thought the big problem for our US democracy was Citizens United/Koch Brothers big money in politics. Silly us; turns out that money isn’t all that important if you can conflate entertainment with the electoral process.

Trump masters TV, TV so-called news picks up and repeats and repeats to death this opinionated blowhard and his hairbrained ideas, free-floating discontent attaches to a seeming strongman and we’re off and running. JFK, Jr would be delighted by all this as his “George” magazine saw celebrity politics coming. The magazine struggled as it was ahead of its time but now looks prescient. George, of course, played the development pretty lightly, basically for charm and gossip, like People, but what we are dealing with now is dead serious.

How does this get handled in the general? Secretary Clinton is not an entertainer, and not a celebrity in the Trump, Kardashian mold; what can she do to offset this? I’m certain the poll-directed insiders are sure things will default to policy as soon as the conventions are over, but I think not.

And as I’ve mentioned, we’ve all been quite content to demean government, drop civics and in general conspire to produce an unaware and compliant citizenry. The unawareness remains strong but compliance is obviously fading rapidly. This problem demands some serious, serious thinking – and not just poll driven, demographically-inspired messaging.

I’m not insulted.  I actually feel a bit sorry for your ignorance.  Mr. Ivey, you make the same mistake that most other progressives make.  Oh, there’s a lot of couch potatoes around who like to watch night time sitcoms, wear stupid clothing and cheer for their favorite band of criminals on Sunday.

But you’re missing the larger point.  The NRA is blamed for rousting the masses of gun owners, for telling them what to think, and for getting in the way of “common sense” gun regulations.  You see the world this way because progressives need their leaders to tell them how to think and what to do.  To the extent that the NRA fights the Senate, Congress and President, they’re doing what we tell them to do.  To the extent that they don’t, they are being recalcitrant.  In the total absence of the NRA, our views wouldn’t change one iota.  We don’t look to them for our world view.

Similarly, messaging won’t change things for us.  When I say “us,” I mean more people than you know.  Donald Trump is a symptom, not the disease.  The only other candidate who had any chance of winning was Ted Cruz, and he was as hated by the establishment as Trump is.  Trump didn’t ascend to the top because of his television persona, but because it’s all being burned down by the people.  Trump is the vessel.  The people threw gasoline and lit the match.

As for the goal of conspiring to produce an unaware and compliant citizenry, you’re far too late for that.  America is the most heavily armed nation in the world.  I’ve seen your plans.

The legislation has already been written. H.R. 4269 would enact a national, permanent ban on the manufacture and sale of so-called “assault weapons” and all firearm magazines capable of holding more than 10 rounds. The bill, introduced last December, already has149 Democratic co-sponsors (218 are needed to pass the House).

H.R. 4269 would ban all AR-15 and AK-type rifles and all civilian versions of military rifles produced anywhere in the word within the past 60 years or so. The bill would also ban all parts kits, stripped receivers, “bump-fire” stocks, thumbhole stocks, trigger cranks, so-called “compliant” rifles, and “any… characteristic that can function as a [pistol] grip.” Law enforcement is exempt from the bill’s provisions.

H.R. 4269 is not a “kick down the door and confiscate ‘em” bill. Existing rifles and magazines are “grandfathered” (but the transfer of existing magazines is permanently prohibited). Gun banners know that it is literally impossible to perform a door-to-door gun confiscation in a nation of 300 million people, and that any attempt to do so would certainly be met with violence. Consequently, they have pre-empted the “Come and take it” crowd by employing a long-term strategy. Once the manufacture and sale of certain weapons is prohibited, it is only a matter of time before the legislation would be amended to outlaw the transfer of “grandfathered” rifles as well as magazines, thus enacting a de facto confiscation within a generation.

This won’t work.  No one will comply.  You don’t honestly think we’re going to spend our hard earned money on guns and ammunition, teach our sons to shoot and fend for themselves, and then turn the guns over to you in our wills, do you?

As I said.  It’s too late.  There is an inevitable split coming to America.  Your plans for collectivism can’t control the American spirit.  Every turn of the screw by you will only make matters worse and the people more ungovernable.  But since your world view works from the top down, I don’t expect you to understand this.  That bodes darkness for the near term.

Informative video.  In the end, if you make it that far, I think they reach the right conclusion.  AR-15s (and their parts) have become so reliable that it makes little difference now.  The point of diminishing returns is reached very soon (the sweet spot is < $1500).

Bearing Arms:

Uniformed security guards are hired by stores to provide peace of mind and serve as a deterrent to casual criminals, such as petty shoplifters and aggressive panhandlers. They are not law enforcement officers, do not generally have good training, and the physical and mental screening for security guards isn’t that high (which is perhaps why we’ve had two security guards go on terrorist killing sprees this year alone).

Aggressive predators are not deterred by either unarmed or armed security guards, but it is relatively rare to seen a criminal so callous that he would murder a guard just to acquire an additional handgun.

A man who would murder someone for a handgun would presumably have no problem doing the same with an open carrier who typically has even less training and general awareness than armed security guards.

We’ve noticed that there are generally only four kinds of open carry stories.

1. a group of people open carry as a form of political protest (generally without law enforcement involvement)
2. an individual open carries as a form of political protest (often with law enforcement involvement, including occasional arrests)
3. an individual open carrier who is oblivious to his surroundings has his/her picture posted to gun forums pointing out his/her utter lack of awareness and generally poor choice of gun and holster.
4. an open carrier is attacked for his weapon, with the criminal generally being successful.

We would love to report that open carry deters crime, but there is simply no data suggesting that this is a true statement. Folks, criminals laugh at open carriers. They view them as targets, no different than someone with a cash-filled wallet hanging out of their back pocket as they stand in the checkout line, nose buried in a smart phone and oblivious to the world.

I’ve seen Bob hate on open carriers before, but this is ridiculous.  This commentary is completely out of control (I hesitate to call it an “analysis” because nothing is being analyzed).

Bob doesn’t really know that all uniformed security is poorly trained.  He doesn’t know that open carriers are even more poorly trained than uniformed security.  He also doesn’t know that open carriers have poor situational awareness.

He doesn’t know that open carriers fall into only the four categories he lists.  He’s just referring (anecdotally, not analytically) to news accounts he believes he has read.

He especially doesn’t know that criminals laugh at open carriers.  In fact, I challenge Bob to supply me with one verifiable instance in public where a known criminal laughed at an open carrier.  I’ve open carried many times, and I’ve also been around people I knew to be gang members when doing so.  No one – no one – has ever laughed at me.  In one particular instance when multiple gang members were heading my direction on the sidewalk (it was four or five of them), they saw me open carrying and decided to cross the road, walk past me, and cross back over when they were clear of me.  They kept their heads down and studiously avoided making eye contact with me while walking on the other side of the road.

As I said, this commentary is completely out of control, and I simply have no earthly idea what Bob’s problem is with open carry.  There is no law requiring him to do it, so why the negative attention?  It’s legal, so what business is it of his to bash the practice?  How does a crime against uniformed security turn into open carry bashing?  I’m beginning to think this is a psychological issue that Bob has.

What is your malfunction, Bob?

News Miner:

“At least it’s sunny out,” Dybdahl recalled telling his hunting partner while the pair were waiting for a U.S. Coast Guard helicopter to find them.

Dybdahl, 30, knew he was losing a lot of blood, he knew that there was a chance the helicopter might not find him and he also knew there were more bears in the brush circling them. But none of that mattered. He had already made up his mind that he was going to live.

Sitting up in his hospital bed Tuesday, Hoonah resident Dybdahl went over the surreal mauling he had suffered just three days prior while on a hunting trip near Port Frederick bay with his friend Anthony Lindoff, 36. The two had taken a boat out to an area just 10 miles southwest of Hoonah to look for deer. As they were getting ready to make deer calls, Lindoff said, he heard something. He hoped it was a deer, but then he turned and locked eyes with a sow brown bear running straight toward him.

“It didn’t get the memo that it was supposed to bluff charge, this was serious,” Lindoff said. “It chased me first, and as I was running, backing away, I was trying to swing at it with my trekking poll because my rifle was in my sling on my backpack. I immediately thought that was the biggest mistake I could have made. . I felt like the worst hunting partner.”

Dybdahl threw off his pack and headed farther down the hill, trying to get his rifle in position to help out his friend. Unfortunately, Dybdahl didn’t know that the same direction he was moving in was where the sow bear had left two of her cubs behind. In what Dybdahl said seemed like a single moment, the bear changed direction and Dybdahl was on the ground. His rifle no longer in his hands, he screamed for his friend to shoot the bear as it pinned him down, and had its teeth in his flesh.

Dybdahl said he had never been more “in the moment,” able to see, hear, and smell everything so intensely. Everything he knew about bears went racing through his head. He realized quickly he was angering the bear more by moving and screaming. His body went limp and he was silent. But even though he made himself appear harmless, the sow didn’t stop. For the next 10 seconds, he said, his whole body could feel the bear’s ferocity and rage.

“When she bit down on my leg, my thigh, she ripped so hard. . I could hear everything,” Dybdahl said. “It sounded like paper ripping and she pulled my thigh. I felt my whole thigh muscle move away from my leg bone.”

[ … ]

Although he flinched when Dybdahl recreated the sound of flesh tearing, Lindoff was not as unsettled on Saturday. When he saw the bear on Dybdahl, he went through six motions in approximately 10 seconds, never skipping a beat. He slung his rifle in front of him, took the gun sleeve off, took off the scope cover, chambered a round, aimed and fired.

“I’ve never de-slinged my rifle that quickly,” Lindoff said.

Josh was very blessed.  If you’re going to be in the bush, carry your rifle in hand, regardless of whether it’s comfortable or not.  Or if you don’t want to do that, carry a sidearm for self defense.  I think most Alaskan’s will tell you to carry a wheel gun, .44 Magnum or .454 Casull.  That’s probably good counsel for the entire Northwest.  Down South here, carrying .45 ACP is just fine.

Kyle does a nice job with this.  I saw that Count Dracula concealed carry draw and thought it was rather goofy.