Dean Weingarten has a good find at Ammoland.
Judge Eduardo Ramos, the U.S. District Judge for the Southern District of New York, has issued an Opinion & Order that a ban on stun guns is constitutional. A New York State law prohibits the private possession of stun guns and tasers; a New York City law prohibits the possession and selling of stun guns. Judge Ramos has ruled these laws do not infringe on rights protected by the Second Amendment of the United States Constitution.
Let's briefly…… [read more]
Readers may have noticed that I’ve been out a bit lately. I’ve been busy on hunting trips.
The deer was an 8-pointer taken at Groton Plantation with a 6.5 Creedmoor. He was shot straight through the chest. He pivoted directly towards me and I knew it was take the shot or lose the chance on him forever. The hog was taken at Groton with .444 Marlin. He had tusks. I can’t say enough for the power of the .444 Marlin. If you ever wonder if you’re bringing enough cartridge for the game, you don’t have to wonder with the .444 Marlin. Recoil is a thing, but only when you’re sighting in the gun. When harvesting game, recoil is irrelevant. It may as well be a 22LR. You don’t feel a thing. Maybe next year I’ll use a 45-70 with a Marlin rifle to see how that compares and contrasts.
I would in fact recommend Hornady 265 grain jacketed, bonded flat point versus the Hornady Lever Revolution. I just like it better.
You know how sometimes a hog will roll over and the legs look like he’s swimming? That doesn’t happen when you’re using .444 Marlin. It’s a quick, ethical kill.
There is nothing more fun than southeastern quail hunting. The dog handler was extremely good, and the dogs were great.
“Trooper, Star, get over here and get on them birds. Trooper, find birds. Trooper, hunt birds. Trooper, you’re a lying dog. There’s no birds over here. Trooper, come here and get on birds. Trooper is staying. Trooper is locked up on point. He’s right, they’ve coveyed up. Whoa Trooper, hunters, get over here, Trooper and Star are both locked up on point. Hunters, get over here. Good shot, nice shot. Trooper, dead bird. Trooper, go get that bird.”
At which point I saw Trooper swim into a swamp and get my bird, and on to the next single, or pair, or covey, for two and a half miles. I harvested a total of a dozen quail.
If you have a problem son, or a son or grandson who is bored, or into trouble, there is no greater antidote than something like this. Who wouldn’t like to see deer, hogs, snapping turtles, lizards, turkeys and quail? And see fantastic sunrises in the morning as a testament to the creation God gave us as a token of His esteem? I saw turkey at virtually every sit, and a lizard visited me in every stand I sat.
In my last sit I saw six does and a 4-pointer and 6-pointer. As a disciplined deer hunter I had to let them walk. That 6-pointer had good genetics and was chasing does. I’ve seen 6-pointers that didn’t do that even during the rut, but this boy will be a nice 8-pointer next year, and if I don’t take him next year maybe he’ll be a 10-pointer the following year.
This is the perfect solution to the feminized, communist education camps we call schools. In schools the state believes they own the children. During hunting, you can make it clear that men can do men things and it’s okay. No one owns them. And it’s okay to study the difference between 6.5 Creedmoor and .444 Marlin. And it’s okay to harvest deer with your favorite AR-10, or a bolt action, or a lever action, or any rifle that works for you.
So, fathers and grandfathers, get busy. This is what you should be doing with your boys. They may have to shoot a 20 rather than 12 gauge.
Political commentator Anand Giridharadas said Friday on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” that Democrats needed a “feminist” version of Joe Rogan’s podcast.
Giridharadas said, “You know when one person has a traumatic experience, we know what to do. we go to a counselor, a therapist, maybe they take some medication. When an entire country has a traumatic experience, it’s just called life. It’s just called history. We have an entire country and world that had a traumatic experience, whether it was my kindergartner wearing a mask to school, which I’m very glad we had masks, but also watching my kindergartner not being able to recognize the faces of their best friend because eyes are not enough at age 6 to recognize a face. And the enormous amount of mental health challenges that I don’t think we even fully realized were unleashed. The sense of defenselessness people felt economically. And you’re right that when you have that kind of traumatic event, it’s just in the blood in ways that historians may make sense of, sociologists may make sense of. I don’t think we right now are in a position to make sense of it.”
He added, “Particularly the media ecosystem, it is not it’s not a good one. It’s a negative one, it is a radicalization funnel. What they have done in the online media ecosystem is build a radicalization engine, the way militant groups do around the world. It takes people from low level annoyances with the world, ‘Why are eggs so expensive? Why are my kids learning things in school I didn’t learn? And then moves through You Tube videos, podcasts, moves them from the annoyance, to a full blown fascist politics. It’s an elaborate multibillion dollar infrastructure, and there is nothing like it on the pro-democracy side. We don’t have, when a man is lost and lonely and not yet radicalized, we don’t have the equivalent of Joe Rogan or Jordan Peterson to move that man in a feminist direction.”
While understanding just a little bit about what happened, Scott Jennings end with “We have to figure out how to talk to …”
Jen Psaki tells us how she feels and wanted a woman to be elected president.
Watch the moment Jen Psaki calls the race for President Trump on MSNBC before delivering one of most hyperbolic, unhinged descriptions of Donald Trump you’ll ever hear.
You see, they still don’t get it. They think this is all about an influencer.
The party of “We don’t know the difference between a man and a woman” wants a woman to be elected president. It would be literally impossible to make this up if you hadn’t heard someone say it out loud.
The problem isn’t that leftists don’t know how to talk to more than half of America. The problem isn’t a lack of communication. The problem isn’t that they lack an influencer.
The problem is that their policy choices were all too clear: Gender confusion, DEI, inflation, more theft through taxation, more onerous control, whether gun control or wage and price controls, more wars of foreign adventure, more out-of-control deficit spending, more kowtowing to both the extremely wealthy on the one hand, having made deals behind closed doors for “special” deals for them, and the lay class on the other hand who wants to do the same thing as the elitists, i.e., fleece the middle class, more unfettered immigration – both hurting wages and increasing loss of income from taxes to pay for the medical care of immigrants (because the elitists won’t pay them medical care), and on and on the list could go.
They heard the message loud and clear. They rejected it, and soundly so.
The problem wasn’t a failure to communicate. They communicated all too well.
Well, it is Illinois, and the circuit court may ride roughshod over this decision like they did Judge McGlynn’s earlier decision. Here is the decision.
For all the good I think is in here, I still think he (and virtually all other judges and justices) miss the point about the second amendment existing for the amelioration of tyranny. Personal self defense is a cleaned up, sanitized version of the 2A meant to make the 2A more palatable for the inside-the-beltway types.
Self-defense must include defense against the tyranny of the state to be complete.
Forty-one percent of surveyed hunters used an AR-platform rifle at some time for hunting, according to the findings of research conducted by Responsive Management for the Outdoor Stewards of Conservation Foundation (OSCF). When asked a similar question during a 2014 study, the rate was only 25 percent. Fifty-one percent of the hunters who do not currently use an AR said they would if it were legal in their state.
Nearly half of respondents said their favorite hunting firearm is a traditional rifle—defined for purposes of the survey as any rifle that’s not an AR. Another quarter prefer shotguns.
Roughly 80 percent of AR hunters use their firearm to hunt large game, a significant increase from 57 percent in 2014. Thirty-one percent said their preferred quarry is small game, about the same as 2014.
Over a third of AR hunters cited ease of shooting as the primary reason for their preference. Another 31 percent said their main motivation was accuracy. Reliability and weight reduction were the next-highest responses.
“It was not surprising to learn that hunting with AR-platform/modern sporting rifles is on the rise,” said Jim Curcuruto, executive director of OSCF. “I was surprised, however, to see that more than 50 percent of hunters that are not currently using AR-platform rifles to hunt with, responded that they are likely to try hunting with these versatile rifles in the future.”
Well, that the main motivation is accuracy is a little weird. I’ll stipulate that AR pattern rifles have greatly improved over the last ten years, and my rifles are generally 1 MOA. Bolt action rifles are too as long as you spend the money to get good rifles, and something like a Tikka will give you << 1 MOA accuracy. But of course to get the accuracy in an AR pattern rifle costs a lot of money too. I’d have to say generally that since you can buy a Tikka bolt action for < $1500, and getting really good accuracy out of AR-10 pattern rifle requires something like a Daniel Defense or Seekins Precision, you’re saving 50% on your purchase by opting for the Tikka.
Where I think the AR pattern rifle really comes in handy is something like hunting hogs where multiple shots can be taken very quickly. There might be other applications (a deer stumbles but begins to run and you need another round quickly). Anyway, as I said, opting for an AR pattern rifle because of accuracy over a bolt action sounds strange to me.
But I don’t find it surprising at all that AR pattern rifles are beginning to take off among hunters. I would day that if you opt for an AR pattern rifle, spend the money necessary to get a good one. On a recent hunting trip I heard a guide say that the cheaper AR-10s shooting .308 had malfunctions that require slamming the butt into the ground. Normally, that comes from a double-feed.
Recall that I told you that the Virginia Creeper trail above Damascus, Virginia, was closed, and the only part of the trail open was between Abingdon and Damascus?
Here’s why. I can’t embed it because it’s a YouTube Short. The images are stunning.
Blue-collar workers prevailed over bureaucracy in Hurricane Helene-ravaged North Carolina by rebuilding a highway at breakneck speed on their own terms – allowing residents to finally return home.
Coal miners from West Virginia – whom locals have lovingly dubbed the “West Virginia Boys” – moved a mountain in just three days to reopen a 2.7-mile stretch of Highway 64 between Bat Cave and Chimney Rock washed away by Helene.
Chimney Rock residents who fled the hurricane one month ago will now be able to return home for the first time within a few days, months earlier than they expected.
“The river swallowed the road, so I haven’t been home since the hurricane,” Robin Phillips, 49, told The Post.
“The West Virginia boys have moved the mountains. All of the roads were just gone, until now. It’s nothing short of miraculous.
“I haven’t been to my house since the flood but I know very soon I’ll be able to. Without their help, who knows, it would be months before I could access our house.”
Phillips and her husband also run a campground in Chimney Rock, she said. They have not been able to assess the state of their business since the hurricane came through.
“For a small community like ours without many residents, that could easily get overlooked, it’s unreal what they’re doing,” she said of the miners’ effort.
On Friday, The Post watched while the miners balanced a bulldozer and two excavators on the banks of the newly-widened Broad River to shift the final 20-ton granite boulder into place to restore access between the two towns.
The miners, who were all volunteering their time, were too sheepish about building a highway without legal permission to speak on the record.
Officials from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), North Carolina Department of Transportation and the local Sheriff’s office all visited the site but turned a blind eye to the unsanctioned build.
Logan Campbell, 37, a volunteer from Mississippi, said the miners embodied the American spirit.
“To see this many wonderful men, women, all races, different political views, none of that matters at all in these situations,” he told The Post.
“Weak people don’t show up for s–t like this, and if they do they don’t last long.
“It’s such a heartwarming thing to see amidst all the heartbreak.
“It gives you so much hope for the American we all want to believe in and the America we want our children to experience.”
Campbell and his friend Dan Lewis, 41, have been sleeping in tents for the past 17 days volunteering for the residents in the hardest hit towns.
“Different road crews came in and said ‘it’s not doable, the people who live between Bat Cave and Chimney Rock will be trapped in all winter,” said Lewis, who traveled to North Carolina from Oklahoma.
“The DOT (North Carolina Department of Transportation) said ‘yeah, we’ll send some engineers down here and assess the situation.’
“Then the West Virginia boys came in and said, ‘We’ll have this road punched in in about three days.’ No s–t,” he recalled.
“The Army Corps of Engineers took a look and said they’d send some surveyors and engineers, the same thing the DOT said pretty much. I told them you might as well not waste your time because the West Virginia guys will have this road built before you finish your paperwork,” Lewis continued.
“It’s a miracle. It’s unfathomable what has happened in the past few days.
Many in the area still feel abandoned by FEMA and other emergency responders.
Bat Cave resident Curtis McCart – who appeared on The Post’s cover in the immediate wake of Helene – said he still has not received any FEMA aid, but that the agency has set up in the fire department to help residents work on their claims.
“This area got left alone. I rode my horse around and talked to people who haven’t seen any officials,” Lewis told The Post.
Hey, my state of North Carolina indemnifies engineers for volunteer services performed during emergencies. If they need a PE to come look at it and put a seal on it, I’m available.
My wife and I took a bike ride on the Virginia Creeper trail Saturday morning. We had read the report that the trail had been re-opened and both wanted to ride again and also to help the fine folks in that area with our business. This is a trip we have taken dozens of times. The part of the trail from Whitetop to Damascus is closed and will be for a very long time, perhaps years. The portion between Damascus and Abingdon is open, albeit with a few rough patches that make is a little more like single track than pleasant road. That’s fine with me.
We began on Highway 321 but were soon diverted to other roads (we should have known that we couldn’t get there by the regular route). Highway 421 in the section crossing NC into Tennessee (to Mountain City) is closed. We were sent (by Waze) through West Jefferson, NC. We began to see the damage that had been done by the flooding as soon as we left West Jefferson.
Every few hundred yards was a new debris pile that will eventually have to be burned. I was astonished at the trash lining the river banks. The river banks were not what they used to be. A lot of escarpment had been washed away and in its place was debris, dead trees, mud, and as I said, trash. Miles and miles of trash that had washed down the river and deposited along the sides of the river. It looked like a scene from a war.
We were eventually routed on to a gravel road that was suitable only for a single vehicle, around winding turns, up hills and down, with washouts every few hundred yards. We were within feet or even inches of having a tire over the edge of some of the washed out areas (and then down the mountain with what I’m sure would have been several dozen rolls of our vehicle).
We didn’t know we would end up taking this route. We should have gone Highway 77 to Highway 81 to Highway 91 and it would have taken us into Damascus on clear roads. Anyway, this way I got to see the damage and destruction. People live up in these hills and believe me when I tell you that many of them are cut off from the rest of the world. That gravel road is currently only suitable for ATV traffic, at least safely, and then maybe not.
Asplundh trucks and workers are everywhere (before you get on this road). I wonder who is paying for all of this work? When you get on this gravel road, you’re literally on your own. You could have rolled off the side of the mountain and no one would have known it for weeks. Eventually though, we ended up in Taylors Valley, Virginia. I was shocked. We drove right up to the restaurant we always stopped at in Taylors Valley when biking from White Top. I looked to the right for the bridge / trestle and it was gone. In its place was an enormous amount of gravel on both sides of the river with a temporary bridge.
I was thankful for that bridge. On the other side of the Whitetop Laurel River, you need a bridge or trestle to get down to civilization. The folks there would be completely cut off without it, and I’m sure they were for some period of time before the temporary bridge was put up. The driver who took us to Abingdon talked some about what happened in Taylors Valley. He described the story of the couple who almost perished, although in greater detail that in this report (because up there, everybody knows everybody). He actually bound his life vest to a tree so that “his body could be found later.”
At Blue Blazes Bike Rental (where we hopped a ride to Abingdon with our own bikes) Rick told us that the mud inside the shop was two feet deep. They had to excavate before the shop could be reopened. Other businesses there were destroyed. It all made me very sad. I didn’t get a chance to talk to Rick for very long, but I’ve written him and told him that I’d like to volunteer my time for any manual labor they or anyone else in the area needs.
I do have a few closing thoughts. Our driver told us about a visit to Damascus from OSHA soon after the flooding. The OSHA inspector had a big problem with a receptable that had no plate – in a city without power. He made other problems for them too, until the chief of police told him to get out of the town.
FEMA came up there too, but sat in offices (or tents) and hooked up to the internet (I guess via uplinks and battery power) and after they were told of a isolated couple that needed help, the response was “Tell them to come down here and fill out some forms.” He was told that the couple was isolated, had no power, and didn’t know how to use a computer anyway. Eventually they were able to talk him into hopping a ride with someone to actually go see them.
The National Guardsmen who were manning the station at Ashe County to supply emergency resources to the people were doing mostly nothing as far as I could tell. They should have been on the train up to where we were with backpacks on. We went further in car than they did by any means at all. Asplundh made it further up into the NC mountains than the NC national guard did.
If the NG actually wants to train its men to do this sort of thing, they need to look for hunters, survivalists and backpackers. What better training for the NG than to put on backpacks and head into the mountains of NC and Virginia with no power, only the weight on their backs, and maybe a Milstar uplink?
FEMA should look for the same type of people if they are serious about their mission. But they apparently aren’t, and so it’s a waste of taxpayer money. No one I talked to said anything good about any government entity at all after the flood (except for city or county rescue), although the helicopter that picked up the survivor in Taylors Valley was a Black Hawk, so thankfully the NC NG did something right.
The NC legislature will have to make it so that all of these piles of debris can be burned without interference from NC DHEC. I have no confidence that the governor will do anything about this, but hopefully the legislature can get a veto-proof vote on helping these folks out. Most of the work I saw happening was being done by the people of Ashe County, not any government entity.
I think this is an interesting weapon, and I asked a friend of mine of adding a stock to this would make and SBR (knowing the answer before I asked).
He has a brace on it. You can argue that this is just a work-around to the NFA, or you can argue that this is an accoutrement that allows you to shoot the weapon in the best ergonomic configuration to be successful in a self defense situation. In the end, I don’t care how you argue.
The court has knocked down ATF challenges to the pistol-brace decision.
I think it’s instructive that the trigger is so heavy and has such large travel. I suppose if you purchased this model you’d have to get work done on the trigger (or a new one).
