Guns Magazine.

To understand how we got here we need to look at its military origins. Some years ago I had the pleasure of meeting Eugene Stoner at the SHOT Show. We were able to sit down and chat for an hour or so, which I considered a privilege then and still do.

Back in the 1950s, he said, the U.S. military had just adopted the M14 rifle using the 7.62mm cartridge, ballistically similar to the .30-06. What might be called the “Old Guard” supported the concept of powerful battle rifles and carefully aimed fire at individual targets.

Other military theorists noted enemy soldiers for the most part don’t stand around in the open waiting to get shot. They hide behind things and shoot from cover. Combat in WWII and in Korea had shown the value of suppressive fire, “shoot and move,” and the integration of infantry, artillery and air power.

The rifle they wanted would be lightweight, with moderate recoil, selective semi- or full-automatic fire, compact and fast-handling for house-to-house fighting and adequately powerful, using non-expanding bullets. Hmmm, you don’t want much, do you? Stone said the only way he knew of to make a small non-expanding bullet behave like a bigger bullet is if it tumbles on impact. Original rifles had a 1:14 twist so bullets were just barely stable in flight, but would destabilize and tumble when they hit something.

Almost as soon as it was adopted the twist was changed to 1:12 to improve stability, which some argued also decreased effectiveness. In the ’70s and ’80s military users began shifting to heavier bullets for improved downrange ballistics, requiring faster barrel twists. It took a while, but faster twists eventually appeared on sporting rifles.

Faster twists and sleeker bullets, notably from Berger and Hornady, greatly enhance the versatility of the .223. Compare a 55-grain FMJ bullet (G1 B.C. 0.243) at 3,200 fps to a Berger VLD 80-grain bullet (G1 B.C. 0.455) at 2,750 fps. With both sighted at 200 yards, bullet drop at 600 yards is 91.5″ for the 55 grain versus 82.3″ for the 80 grain. Now check the 10 mph wind drift figures: 55 grain, 60.8″; 80 grain, 32.5″. That nearly 50 percentage advantage in wind drift is huge. Moreover the 80-grain bullet starting out 450 fps slower reaches the 600-yard line going over 400 fps faster (1,271 55 grain, 1,680 80 grain).

So what is a fast-twist .223 good for? Training with moderate recoil and noise. Teaching new shooters the fundamentals of center fire rifles and longer range shooting. Moderate cost due to smaller bullets and powder charges. Excellent hunting performance for most varmint shooting and for deer, the most popular big-game target. Untold millions and billions of .223 and 5.56 rounds have been loaded over the past 60+ years. Even in times of chronic shortages there’s a good chance of finding quality brass.

In my experience 1:9 will stabilize 70- and some 75-grain bullets, 1:8 will stabilize up to 80-grain bullets. Here’s some examples of twist rates in various rifles. The Savage Elite Precision is 1:7. Browning X-bolt, Ruger American, Sako 85 and Tikka T3X are all 1:8. Ruger’s Hawkeye, Howa, most Savage models, Kimber, Steyr and Weatherby Vanguard are all 1:9. Decide what your priorities are then buy accordingly.

I have heard that from multiple experts (i.e., that 1:9 twist barrels will stabilize 62 and 69 grain bullets, or even slight heavier like the Sierra Match King bullets).

I too and very fond of the round.

And I love hearing stories about Eugene Stoner.  I think we ought to build statues of him and John Moses Browning as the premier weapons designers in American history.

Michael Yon.

We have Americans with blue passports ready to leave Afghanistan. Taliban will allow landing. US Department of State blocking flights. Rick Clay’s team has three jets ready. These jets were on ground on 30 August 2021.

Senator Johnson’s team called us and we on conference call right now.

Our government is blocking taking out Americans from Afghanistan. Taliban is helping. US State Department blocking.

He has started a Go Fund Me campaign to go back to Afghanistan and try to do some good if possible.

I told Michael by text message that none of this is surprising and I still believe there is more than meets the eye.  I do not believe any of this is due to incompetence or accident.  This is all intentional.  Every bit of it.

The Taliban are begging for U.S. diplomats to return to Kabul.  In fact, they’re not begging for it, they’re demanding it.  You see, they want to be recognized.

As I told Michael, they want their very own SpecOps (right, did you see their presence on the runway at the airport with pant legs rolled up, dressed differently from each other, unkempt hair, irregular weapons, etc.).  It’ll be a long time before there is anything special about their SpecOps.

They want to rule, they want money.  Yes, they want aid.  And they want gas pipelines to run through Afghanistan from Turkmenistan to Pakistan (something they’ve wanted for a long time), and they want mining of the precious metals and gems, and they want a cut of all of that money.  They want to live in big homes like rich people, and they want to sit in front of cameras and look important.

And guess what – they’ll get it.  Leaving Americans in Afghanistan is the perfect pretext for the State Department to return so that “diplomatic solutions to our problems can be worked out.”  The State Department wants to recognize the Taliban.  They’re another Muslim people to court, and the State Department has never seen an America-hating Muslim people they don’t love.

Beware what you ask for.  You might get it.  There is an eternal jihad.  The silliness and absurdity of the situation has even caught the attention of Chris Muir (sent to me by Michael).  Good.  But besides the absurdity, there are dangerous machinations afoot, the effects of which will carry on long after this absurdity is over.

I could have titled this “South Carolina Attorney General Versus Columbia On Everything,” and it would have been just about right.

First off, while I don’t think we discussed it, S.C. AG Alan Wilson won against Columbia over gun rights restrictions a few months ago (May 2021).

The Court of Common Pleas has agreed with South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson and ruled that three local gun ordinances passed by the City of Columbia violate state law. AG Wilson sued the city in April 2020, arguing that state law specifically says local governments cannot pass gun ordinances that are stricter than state law.

“We’ve said for three decades now that state law doesn’t allow cities, towns or counties to regulate firearms, so we appreciate the judge’s ruling,” Attorney General Wilson said. “These Columbia ordinances clearly violate the state law that prohibits local governments from passing any gun laws or ordinances that regulate the transfer, ownership, or possession of firearms.”

In 2015, the City of Columbia was first advised by this office that local gun ordinances are preempted by state law. Since that time, the City has continued to pass similar ordinances. One of Columbia’s ordinances would allow the city to confiscate firearms from those people who have Extreme Risk Protection Orders against them. Another ordinance bans the possession of firearms within 1000 feet of a public or private school. A third ordinance prohibits homemade firearms which have no serial number, known as ghost guns.

Next up, mask mandates.

In the latest of several such legal cases across a nation where cultural and political clashes have erupted over the COVID-19 response, the court ruled 5-0 to issue a declaratory judgment for South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson, who brought the case against the city of Columbia.

Wilson, a Republican, argued a state law that allows parents to decide whether their children wear masks in school trumps the city’s mask mandate ordinance for private and public elementary and middle school students and staff.

The emergency school mask ordinance, brought by Columbia Mayor Steve Benjamin in response to the surge in infections, had been approved by the city council in Columbia two weeks ago. The ordinance, which also applied to daycare centers, was aimed at children too young to be vaccinated.

South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster said in a tweet https://twitter.com/henrymcmaster/status/1433511028327915521 that the court had come to “a sound conclusion” based on the rule of law.

“A parent’s right to decide what’s best for their child is now definitively protected by state law,” he said, while encouraging residents to get vaccinated.

Benjamin, a Democrat, said in a statement that the city “will always act to preserve and protect the lives, health and safety of our children. This is a sad day for children in South Carolina.”

They want to be their own little country down there in Columbia, yes?  What happened that those folks would decide to give themselves such petty tyrants on the city council and for mayor?

Sounds like it’s time for a reckoning in the state capital.

News from D.C.

A sharply divided Supreme Court early Thursday said it will not block a new Texas law that deputizes any Texan to enforce a six-week ban on abortions. Five justices — Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett — explained in a brief, unsigned majority opinion that the abortion advocates asking for an emergency stay “raised serious questions regarding the constitutionality of the Texas law at issue,” but they were unable to untangle the “complex and novel antecedent procedural questions” raised by the law.

The four dissenters — Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan — argued in separate rebuttals that their five colleagues, without any real debate, were rewarding Texas lawmakers for inventing a novel scheme to stomp on decades of Supreme Court precedent.

“The statutory scheme before the Court is not only unusual, but unprecedented,” Roberts wrote, and he would have granted “preliminary relief” at least until “the courts may consider whether a state can avoid responsibility for its laws in such a manner.” Instead, the court allowed the law to take effect before lower courts weighed in, “without ordinary merits briefing, and without oral argument.”

Okay so let’s break this down.  Two squishes sided with the constitutionalists along with a very confused woman, and the communist sided with the communists.

Never forget that George W. Bush gave us Roberts.  And also two wars.  And also the Patriot Act.  And did nothing for the recognition of gun rights.  Never forget he supported a renewed when the sunset provision took over.

He was always an enemy, never a friend.

MARADMIN.

The provisions contained within paragraph 3.a of this MARADMIN constitute a lawful general order and any violation of these provisions is punishable as a violation of Article 92 of ref (i).  Marines shall take action to fully immunize themselves against COVID-19 per ref (j).  Paragraph 3.a is punitive and applies without further implementation.  Commanders, commanding officers, and officers in charge shall issue appropriate orders to ensure that their Marines and Sailors are fully vaccinated.  In accordance with Rule for Court Martial 306 of ref (n), initial disposition authority for cases arising from COVID-19 vaccine refusals is withheld to the general court-martial convening authority level except that administrative counseling pursuant to paragraph 6105 of ref (k) may be issued at the special court martial convening authority level.

There are no permanent exemptions, not even medical exemption unless contraindicated.  Further, they recognize no such thing as a religious exemption.  This is a standing order under the threat of court martial, regardless of proximity to date of discharge.

They make an awful lot of bold claims in this MARADMIN, such as the shot being “extremely safe and effective,” something we won’t know without long term data.  But let’s leave behind the medicine for a moment.

What they’re saying is that regardless of your religious beliefs, you must take the shot.  Recall that we’ve discussed this at length, and every shot out there was developed on the backs of cell lines from aborted babies.

Regardless of what you think about that, there are some who believe they should not take the shot for that reason alone.

So the USMC is now superseding religious views.

This is not your father’s or grandfather’s Marine Corps.  Not only did my son serve in the Marines, but most of my uncles served in WWII and the Korean war in the USMC.  I could never join the military because of RA.

Nonetheless, I repudiate them.  They are dead to me.

News from Nevada.

The Nevada trooper first told Stephen Lara the highway patrol was educating drivers “about violations they may not realize they’re committing” and that he’d been pulled over for following a tanker truck a bit too closely. After some small talk, the trooper admitted an ulterior purpose: stopping the smuggling of illegal drugs, weapons and currency as they crossed the state.

Lara — a former Marine who says he was on his way to visit his daughters in Northern California — insisted he was doing none of those things, though he readily admitted he had “a lot” of cash in his car. As he stood on the side of the road, police searched the vehicle, pulling nearly $87,000 in a zip-top bag from Lara’s trunk and insisting a drug-sniffing dog had detected something on the cash.

Police found no drugs, and Lara, 39, was charged with no crimes. But police nonetheless left with his money, calling a Drug Enforcement Administration agent to coordinate a process known as “adoption,” which allows federal authorities to seize cash or property they suspect is connected to criminal activity — without levying criminal charges.

“I left there confused. I left there angry,” Lara said in an interview with The Washington Post. “And I could not believe that I had just been literally robbed on the side of the road by people with badges and guns.”

You can believe it.  It happens all over America, every day.  They confiscate whatever they want and buy guns, ammunition, body armor, expensive Dodge Chargers, and other toys to keep them occupied.

And all over America, they’ll come for you if you use a firearm to defend yourself, which they stand and allow Antifa to assault people with impunity.

Now people are learning that they are thieves too.  This is no different than a carjacker stealing your vehicle, or someone breaking into your home to burglarize it.

Honestly, cops are beginning to wonder why people hate them.  Why should they wonder?

Oh, and also remember that the awful Jeff Sessions highly favored civil asset forfeiture laws and spoke on their behalf.

Newsbusters.

Univision aired a bombshell allegation in the midst of its coverage of the United States’ disastrous Afghanistan withdrawal. Per former Army Green Beret and Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Roger Pardo-Maurer, the Department of Defense had knowledge of the homicide bomber at Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul, Afghanistan, and scrambled a Predator drone only to order it to stand down as it locked on its target. Per Pardo-Maurer, the stand-down order was given in deference to negotiations with the Taliban.

Watch the stunning allegation, as aired on Univision’s midday Edición Digital newscast on Tuesday, August 31st, 2021:

ROGER PARDO-MAURER: What is being said by people who were involved is that the Department of Defense already knew who the bomber was, and when (the Kabul attack would happen), and that a Predator drone had a lock on him, OK, and that they refused to grant permission to fire upon that bomber. (Permission) was requested, and was denied. Why? Because we are in this process of negotiating with the Taliban, who aren’t even in control of their own government or their own people.

So the deaths of 13 Marines will be put down in the book of sins of the men who knew and participated in this, and the men who defend them and speak on their behalf.

A Holy God and His judgment awaits you.

News from Missouri.

CAPE GIRARDEAU, Mo. (KFVS) – The Second Amendment Preservation Act became law over the weekend, one day after a Cole County judge threw out a legal challenge to it.

Now, a growing number of Heartland law enforcement leaders say this new law’s actually missing the mark, by benefiting the most violent criminals and putting your communities at risk.

Signed by current Republican Governor and former sheriff Mike Parson, the new law prohibits state and local cooperation with federal officials in any actions that violate a Missourian’s right to keep and bear arms.

“Well, very early on I was actually in favor of a large part of this,” said Sikeston Department of Public Safety Chief James McMillen. “Then we got into the details of this and, of course, I was like this is going to be a problem.”

Those details led us to sit down recently with McMillen, Dexter Police Chief Hank Trout, Poplar Bluff Police Chief Danny Whiteley, Butler County Prosecuting Attorney Kacey Proctor, Butler County Sheriff Mark Dobbs, Stoddard County Prosecuting Attorney Russ Oliver and Cape Girardeau Police Chief Wes Blair.

They are all do something even they did not expect, speak out against the Second Amendment Preservation Act.

“When I first read the legislation, I was concerned because it essentially says that we can’t cooperate with the federal government on anything that involves a gun,” Chief Blair said.

One of Blair’s officers showed us an AR-15 and a pistol Cape Girardeau police found on Gene Wren when they arrested him in November 2020.

Wren is now serving eight years in federal prison in a case worked by an officer Blair assigned to the ATF Task Force in 2017.

“And during that time, he was able to get 181 federal indictments on federal gun charges. Most of those would be felons in possession of guns.”

“I think that the average citizen thinks the federal agencies are kind of very far away and distant from us,” said Kacey Proctor. “The reality is I communicate with my counterpart in the federal system probably four or five times a week.”

Since I believe in neither your war on guns nor your war on drugs, this is a good thing, and cooperation with federal law enforcement is not.

I think the new law is working just about right.

Of course, I agree with one fellow in the comments.  Firearms are only as good as the person who owns them.  If they’re never intended to be used as a guarantee against tyranny, you may as well not have them.

ARFCOM: He missed the boat on N.C. pistol repeal bill, which has already been vetoed by the Goober of N.C., Roy Cooper.

This goes along with an article I read a day or two ago (via WiscoDave).

The man selling me the pistol puts his finger on a number in a box in the top upper left corner. That number is 2,657. It is 12:30 PM on a Tuesday.

“That’s the number of pistols sold and sent for background checks so far today in California.”

“Two thousand six hundred and fifty-seven guns sold today in California? Really?”

“It’ll be at least 5,000 by midnight tonight.”

“Really?”

“Really. We’ve been seeing between 5,000 and 6,000 a day since January. In California. Seven days a week.”

Ponder that one again.  5000 guns per day in California.  Tens or hundreds of thousands more across this land.  The gun control horse left the barn a very long time ago.  They’ll never get it back in.

He’s controversial and say what you will about him, he’s a hundred times smarter and more savvy than any current flag officer in the U.S. military.

Of course, I claim as I have before that none of this is accidental or a mistake.  It’s all intentional.