Yea it’s slow compared to today’s standards, but I want one.  I’ve always wanted one since I was a kid.

Survival Blog.

Many times, I’ve heard it suggested that restrictions on privately-owned sidearms developed because of Declaration III of the Hague Convention, which banned the use of expanding (mushrooming) bullets. The U.S. government has never been a signatory to that portion of the Hague Convention, but we’ve largely abided by it. Although we do have a penchant for military shotguns, which many European military leaders consider “barbaric.”  And most recently, the U.S. Army adopted a hollowpoint 9mm cartridge.

[ … ]

In later conflicts, the tradition of POWs for aviators continued, with many willfully flouting regulations. In addition to sidearms for personal protection, many pilots and other aircrewmen carried .22 rimfire guns, for hunting small game, in case they were shot down in a remote area. The Air Force had officially-issued “Survival Guns” which were available in just small numbers. But many pilots carried their own .22 pistols–most commonly those made by Hi-Standard, or Colt Woodsman pistols.

American servicemen in the Vietnam War had a fairly large number of privately-owned weapons. These were either guns from home, or captured weapons, or a variety of guns bought on the black market from ARVN soldiers. The “status symbol” guns for both aviators and ground troops were .357 magnum revolvers.  In some instances, soldiers would have family members mail them handguns or disassembled long guns. These were mostly riot shotguns, But a few soldiers asked for  — and received via mail — their trusty .30-30 Winchester carbines. To 21st Century readers this might sound hard to believe, but it really happened.

And from the comments there is this.

I had a friend who was in Viet Nam in 1968-69 and carried his personal S&W .357mag. His parents sent him several boxes of .357 HP ammo in the mail and the military stopped the delivery and sent the ammo back to his parents. The military included a letter to his parents telling them NOT to send their son anymore ammo, that they would supply him and that hollow point ammo was not allowed due to the Hague Convention, which you were right, the US did not sign that part of.

Finally, to close out the study James writes this.

In my opinion, any active duty or reserve officer or NCO should be able to carry whatever weapon he pleases, on-post or off-post, and whether deployed or stateside. But regulations say otherwise.

It’s difficult for me to see how logistics officers could possibly handle any weapon, any caliber, and a multitude of parts for those weapons.  But it seems to have worked in the past.

I agree with one commenter, who said that “I didn’t think I’d find this interesting” but I did.  I did too, very much so.  In fact, I’ve asked before – to no avail – for pictures of revolvers used in either OIF or OEF.  I do have one picture of a 1911 carried by a general in Afghanistan, who can of course carry anything he wants.

Also, I confess that I didn’t know that until the advent of the M17 that the U.S. military shot ball rounds.  I did know that, for example, John Basilone killed all those enemy troops with an M2 and a 1911 shooting ball ammunition.

But I didn’t know that we were still using ball ammo in OEF and OIF.  Can veterans confirm this?

That’s US Postal Inspection Service agents, to be exact.

Not only did these New York Division of the United States Postal Inspection Service (USPIS) officers neglect to bring an accessible van with a power-lift, they REFUSED Brian – a triple amputee – access to and the use of his wheelchair, which was sitting in his home, yards away from no less than fifteen USPIS officers!

What is even more unbelievable is that these crazed New York State USPIS officers not only deprived Brian of his wheelchair, they also pointedly denied Brian the use of his prosthetics! Prosthetics are, to a person who uses them every day to get around, akin to the eyeglasses many of us need, day-to-day. so we can see to get around, the hearing aids we use, so we can hear to get along and the canes some of us may need. No difference, all accommodations to a temporary or permanent disability. Yet these NY USPIS officers pointedly deprived Brian of the accommodations he specifically needs to move around day-to-day as person with a disability: his wheelchair and his prosthetics.

They forced this United States’ veteran to crawl. They even all stood by and watched while he crawled. The officers who conducted this arrest, their New York bosses and the U.S. DOJ Southern District of New York (SDNY) attorneys who ordered this arrest in this fashion, should be losing sleep over this incident. More to the point they should have lost their jobs by now.

No, that’s the easy way out.  They should have been shot on sight.

American Rifleman.

Sometimes a POI shift is simply due to a parts change, usually toward the front of a rifle. Changing muzzle devices always requires a re-zero, but even removing and reinstalling the same flash hider or brake can shift POI. Changing a semi-automatic’s gas block or a barrel nut to support a different handguard will also affect shot placement on target. Any alteration of things that touch a barrel, especially in terms of their position, weight or pressure, will alter point-of-impact. So long as the parts change is intentional and everything is mounted and torqued securely, a simple re-zero is all that is required to deal with this shift.

Items that attach to rifle fore-ends are the root cause for most problems I see. The typical offenders are the screw ends for M-Lok, KeyMod and backer-plate accessories. At least one company includes screws that are about twice as long as needed to secure its M-Lok accessories. Thus, it is very easy to wind up impinging on a barrel or gas block, resulting in POI shifts and accuracy-related problems. The heavy-barrel contours typical of chamber areas increase the chances of this problem as you move rearward along a handguard.

I said the same thing about the affect of attaching lights directly to the barrel four years ago, and was [incorrectly] torched in the comments.

But I was right then and this author is right now.  I didn’t make it up four years ago, and this author isn’t making it up now.  Machine harmonics matters.

I would add that not only can you make changes to your rifle that affect the POI, you can make them in a way that yields reduced accuracy even if you re-zero the gun (due to additional harmonics introduced by the component, making for an unstable system).  So this would mean larger groups.

I love floated barrels, and I don’t attach anything to them.  And as all hunters know, if you have a wood stock and it gets wet during a rain, if the wood swells and you can’t take that piece of paper and slide between the stock and barrel (you know what I’m talking about), your zero is off.

News.

“It’s estimated that 200 million people will die probably by the time I finish this talk,” claimed the 77-year-old career politician.

Correction.  “It’s estimated that 200 million more of my brain cells will die probably by the time I finish this talk.”

I’m sure this will be a great series and I look forward to the next installments.  And don’t be fooled – when the communists go after semiautomatic weapons, they’ll come after lever action rifles too.  The communists in New Zealand did, right before they began forced vaccinations and quarantine camps of their population.

Via WRSA.

pic.twitter.com/54wIuf7YrZ

— CHIZ (@CHIZMAGA) September 19, 2020

News.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg, whose 27-year tenure as the second female justice on the U.S. Supreme Court culminated a legal career dedicated to advancing the rights of women, has died. She was 87.

Her death less than two months before the election gives President Donald Trump a chance to try to shift the already conservative court further to the right.

By their fruits you shall know them.

Q: “Are you talking about the distances women have to travel because in parts of the country, abortion is essentially unavailable, because there are so few doctors and clinics that do the procedure? And also, the lack of Medicaid abortions for poor women?”

Justice Ginsburg: “Yes, the ruling about that surprised me. [Harris v. McRae — in 1980 the court upheld the Hyde Amendment, which forbids the use of Medicaid for abortions.] Frankly I had thought that at the time Roe was decided, there was concern about population growth and particularly growth in populations that we don’t want to have too many of. So that Roe was going to be then set up for Medicaid funding for abortion.”

And more.

But, Justice Ginsburg explains, “When we no longer need people to keep muskets in their home, then the Second Amendment has no function, its function is to enable the young nation to have people who will fight for it to have weapons that those soldiers will own. So I view the Second Amendment as rooted in the time totally allied to the need to support a militia. So…the Second Amendment is outdated in the sense that its function has become obsolete.”

As for the Heller case, decided by the Court in 2008, Justice Ginsburg says, “If the Court had properly interpreted the Second Amendment, the Court would have said that amendment was very important when the nation was new; it gave a qualified right to keep and bear arms, but it was for one purpose only—and that was the purpose of having militiamen who were able to fight to preserve the nation.”

Battle axe.

This makes things doubly interesting in the next two months.

UPDATE:

David Codrea weighs in.

Asked about Trump supporter who was murdered in cold-blood in Portland, leftist woman responds:

"Tough luck. Don’t be a f**king Trump supporter in Portland."pic.twitter.com/dF9h2jaYH6

— The First (@TheFirstonTV) September 17, 2020

Charming woman.

Okay.  I won’t be a Trump supporter in Portland.

Now.  Just make sure you don’t become a whiny bitch demanding more FedGov money to fix the shit hole you created in Portland.

And make sure you don’t complain when the food trucks won’t deliver, or can’t deliver, because of … things.