David Codrea gives us the background, and then embeds a video.  I won’t bother to embed the same video since you can go to Oath Keepers or WRSA to get it.

For the record, I don’t know if the voice you hear is the legitimate author of this discussion or not.  It might be someone reading the entry at Reddit.

If you want to see the full transcript, here it is.  I have a lot of thoughts on this, but for this time, I think it’s better to leave this open for commenters to hash out what this means and fill in the blanks.

There are a lot of articles and discussion forum threads on barrel twist rate for AR-15s.  So why am I writing one?  Well, some of the information on the web is very wrong.  Additionally, this closes out comment threads we’ve had here touching on this topic, EMail exchanges I’ve had with readers, and personal conversations I’ve had with shooters and friends about this subject.  It’s natural to put this down in case anyone else can benefit from the information.  Or you may not benefit at all.  That’s up to you.

This is a discussion about 5.56mm ammunition and barrel twist rates (and later, about the shooter and ammunition quality).  If you wish to debate the effectiveness of the 5.56mm round generally, or wish to disparage the choice of the Eugene Stoner system, I’m sure there are forums for you.  This is not it.

In the real world, ammunition isn’t concentric, and even if it is almost precisely concentric, pour density can be slightly different throughout the ball, and voids can develop.  This causes gyroscopic stability problems with bullets, even in the best manufactured ammunition. But much ammunition would not be considered the “best manufactured ammunition.”  Ammunition will only be as good as the QA under which it was made.

When center of gravity is off-axis it can cause bullet lateral throwoff, yaw and a host of other problems with bullet trajectory.  In order to overcome these problems, rifling twist achieves this gyroscopic stability for the bullet, thus negating the effects of the manufacturing process (at least in part).

Overstabilization can occur with a barrel twist rate that is too high.  There are incorrect commentaries out there on this subject.  This writer explains that higher twist rate is virtually always better.

Conventional wisdom taught us that slower twist rates wouldn’t properly-stabilize a bullet, causing it to yaw. On the other hand, faster rates could over-stabilize lighter bullets, causing similar problems. This is correct in theory—however, modern ballisticians have pretty much de-bunked the over-stabilization theory as a practical matter. All things being equal, it is better to have too much twist than not enough.

While his statement is a bit imprecise, there is something very precise about it.  It is precisely wrong.  Yet there are much cleaner and simpler explanations of why high twist rate is not always good.  One commenter at this discussion thread summed it up well.

You can certainly overstablilze (sic) a bullet if you spin it so fast it doesn’t nose over at the top of its trajectory … Best thing to do is not spin bullets any faster than what’s needed for best accuracy.

Correct.  If a bullet is overstabilized, it tends to stay pointed along its axis of rotation, even on the final (downward) part of its trajectory.  This can cause keyholing, odd aerodynamic effects (flying sideways through the air) and even bullets to wildly spin off trajectory.

Above it was noted that displaced CoG can cause gyroscopic stability problems, including “lateral throw-off.”  This figure is given to us by Paul Weinacht in his paper for the U.S. Army (Army Research Laboratory, ARL-TR-3015) entitled Prediction of Projectile Performance, Stability, and Free-Flight Motion Using Computational Fluid Dynamics (Figure 9).

Or if you wish to visualize what this might look like in 3D … Dean and LaFontaine, Small Caliber Lethality: 5.56mm Performance in Close Quarters Battle.

Bullets from rifled barrels eventually achieve stability by yawing back and forth, while undergoing a larger revolution about the major axis of the trajectory.  So quite obviously, it’s necessary to spin the bullet, and to spin it enough to give it stability, while protecting the need to nose over on the final part of its trajectory.  Getting this twist rate and spin right has been a matter of much testing, internet fights, and lot of engineering study and heavy spending by the taxpayers.  I know that my guns perform well, and so I decided to contact my manufacturer for his opinion on the matter.

In the interest of full disclosure, I have two Rock River Arms rifles, one Elite CAR A4 with a 16″ Barrel, twist 1:9, Quad Rail, and another competition gun with a muzzle brake and 18″ SS barrel with a twist rate = 1:8.  I have recommended RRA rifles to my readers before, but there are many good guns on the market.  Your probably have one.  I sent a list of three questions to RRA, and Steve gave me these responses (the question isn’t included because it wasn’t forwarded back to me, but it’s apparent what I asked except for the first question, which was basically does RRA warranty their 1 MOA for both M193 and M855.  This is Steve’s response.

Herschel,

Thanks for your questions.  I’m going to take them in reverse order.

3.  1:9 is adequate for many, but not all rounds typically used in an AR platform.  Between .223 Remington and 5.56mm NATO, there are rounds from 45 to 90 grains (that I am familiar with) and I know of, but have never shot, lighter and heavier rounds.  No single twist is going to handle all of them.  1:9 is adequate for a sizable number of them, however…including the two most commonly available, in bulk and at reasonable prices…55gr FMJ (M193)and 62/63gr FMJ (M855).  It is not ideal for rounds lighter than 50gr nor those over 68 or 69 grains, which is why there are other twist rates commonly available…including from RRA. We offer a 1:12 24” bull barrel for our Varmint hunters who prefer to use the lighter bullets for prairie dogs and other targets, and both 1:7 and 1:8 barrels in a variety of configurations for those who want to shoot heavier bullets…up to and including the newer 77gr loads and 80gr VLDs.  We’ve also run custom twists for a limited number of contracted purchases.

2.  Yes.  1:9 does well with both M193 and M855.  Different barrels perform differently, but 1:9 generally stabilizes both weight/length bullets fairly well,  It neither over nor under spins either and does not produce key holing.

1.  The hardest question to answer.  Neither M193 nor M855 are notoriously accurate rounds.  They meet military, not match, requirements.  Our accuracy claims are the rifle’s capability…but the shooter and ammo have to do their parts.  There are loads that are commercially available and claimed to be “M193” and “M855” equivalents that clearly aren’t, and they aren’t  capable of  ”minute of bad guy” at 100 yards, let alone the .75 to 1.5 MOA claims that we make for our different rifles.  That is no reflection on our rifles or barrels, or the shooters…unfortunately there is some real crappy ammo on the market today, which will not perform well out of any barrel, of any twist rate.

Thanks.

Steve/RRA

This is a good response, but let’s not stop here.  While perhaps not recalled by some, American Rifleman has given us a fairly comprehensive look at 5.56mm ammunition and barrel twist rates in an article entitled Testing The Army’s M855A1 Standard Ball Cartridge.  It is rich with history on how the Army fielded the M855A1.  Ignore the issue of the M855 versus the M855A1 for a moment and consider the background.

Accuracy cannot be assessed without addressing the rifle barrels’ twist-rates. In the early 1980s the M855’s 62-grain bullet was developed for the M249 Squad Automatic Weapon (SAW). For purposes of interoperability, the same load was adopted as the M16A2 rifle’s standard ball as well. A February 1986 U.S. Army study noted that the M855’s bullet required a “1:9 twist [which] would be more appropriate for the M16A2 rifle, improving accuracy and reliability.” Multiple studies confirmed the 1:9-inch twist requirement.

But then a problem arose. The U.S. military’s standard M856 5.56 mm tracer round was longer, heavier (63.7 grains) and slower than the M855 ball, and simply would not stabilize with a 1:9-inch twist barrel. Thus, despite it doubling M855 group sizes, the M16A2 (and later, the M4) specified a 1:7-inch rate-of-twist barrel to stabilize the tracer round. It remains so to this day. Therefore, M855A1 was test-fired with both 1:7- and 1:9-inch twist barrels, and it was verified that this new cartridge is consistently more accurate in the latter barrels-as was its predecessor.

Don’t slip past these paragraphs, because they explain why “Milspec” is 1:7.  It isn’t because 1:7 shoots M193 or M855 more accurately.  It’s because of the weight of tracer rounds.  As we’ve discussed before, the term Milspec doesn’t mean better, or worse, or anything at all except that it precisely meets the specifications outlined in the purchase order(s), excepting whatever variance notifications they might make on a given batch of guns.

The M855A1’s developers have described it as yielding “match-like” accuracy, which most rifle shooters would define as one minute-of-angle (m.o.a.), or groups measuring no more than 1 inch at 100 yards. While the new ammunition has proved more accurate than the green-tipped load it replaced, testing did not yield match-like accuracy, especially in the standard 1:7-inch twist-rate found in today’s M4s and M16s. At 100 yards, the best group with a 1:7-inch barrel was 1.62 inches (1.6 m.o.a.). At 300 yards. it similarly fired 1.6 m.o.a. (4.9 inches) and widened to 1.8 m.o.a. (7.5 inches) at 400 yards. At these same distances, firing the M855A1 through a 1:9-inch twist barrel reduced group sizes by approximately half.

The tests demonstrated that 1:9 twist produced better accuracy, approximately twice as accurate.  Now take note what the testers found with the newer M855A1 regarding repeatability.

On average, the new ammunition produced one flyer in roughly each five rounds, which, it can be argued, exaggerated the group sizes. Since the Army announced that, “On average, 95 percent of the [M855A1] rounds will hit an 8×8-inch target at 600 meters,” each group’s most errant bullet impact was discarded and group sizes recalculated. Statistically they improved, but not enough to place 95 percent of rounds so close at 600 meters, at least when using the standard 1:7-inch barrel-which may explain why accuracy was less than expected.

There is one “flyer” in every five rounds.  This seems to me to be a significant problem with this ammunition combined with the barrel twist, and the commenters don’t seem to like it very much either.  Finally, this.

When U.S. Army shooters twice fired public demonstrations of the new round, they did not employ standard 1:7-inch twist M16A2s or M4s, but accurized, match-grade, stainless-barreled rifles from the Army Marksmanship Unit (AMU). I contacted the AMU and learned that these rifles did not have standard-issue 1:7-inch barrels, but most likely 1:8-inch twist, which probably accounts for their “match-like” accuracy.

Isn’t that rich?  The Army made claims of “match-like accuracy,” and proved the rounds shooting out of different barrels than are deployed with Soldiers, using 1:8 twist, not 1:7 twist.

The American Rifleman article goes on to discuss in some detail the performance of the M855A1 with slim-profiled targets like malnourished tribal fighters in Afghanistan (so-called “ice picking” the target without fragmentation), performance at barrier penetration (concluding that it is better than its predecessor), and its lethality once it does penetrate barriers.  I recommend this reading to you.  It’s well worth the time.

So to summarize what we know, remember some basic things.  First, the bullet has to be spun to give it gyroscopic stability.  This spin needs to match the bullet (including mass and length), and care must be taken not to over-stabilize the bullet.  If you shoot typical .223 ammunition (55 gr.), or M193 or M855, a twist rate of 1:9 is probably just about ideal.  You’ll probably lose some accuracy with a higher twist rate.

This loss of accuracy is likely not significant for a lot of shooters.  If you shoot much heavier ammunition (and there is a lot on the market), you probably need to consider a twist rate of 1:8.  Finally, none of this matches the value of good ammunition or good shooting.

That’s the good news.  Most guns can outperform the shooter, and I know that’s the case with me.  I’m a decent shooter.  Not great, but decent.  I’ve taken my Tikka T3 .270 bolt action rifle and literally put rounds through the same hole at 100 yards (with slightly more tearing of the same hole in the paper).  On the other hand, this is with a good scope, no wind, a cool and comfortable day, all day to work my craft and thus no time pressure, no one else to be concerned about, lots of coffee to wake up, and a full belly.

But if I had kept records, it wouldn’t have happened again exactly like that since, theoretically, even with perfect ammunition, considering barrel harmonics and that physical processes like this are a heuristic phenomenon, if I had continued to log my shots this way, it would have doubtless shown a standard distribution (distance between each shot and mean).

But regardless of the details, you’ve done it before.  Control breathing … get good sight picture … back out of the shot if you’re not mentally right … know where your trigger breaks … and so on.  You know the drill, since you’ve done it many times.  It’s perhaps the purest pleasure a shooter can have.

Now throw in simple annoyances like a whining partner at the range, losing daylight and time pressures, hunger, and any of the other 100 possible nuisances that can sap your accuracy.  Then your accuracy goes to hell, doesn’t it?  Now, combine that with wearing heavy gear and being shot at, and I’m sure it diminishes your control over your weapon.  Thankfully, I only have the experiences of my former Marine son conveyed to me.

The good part of this is that regardless of your barrel twist rate, if your AR-15 is reliable, even if it’s not top of the line, it can probably outperform you.  That means getting better isn’t a matter of getting a new rifle or barrel with a different twist.  It means practicing with your rifle, sometimes under duress.  It also means buying good ammunition.  Steve at RRA is right.  The shooter and ammo have to do their part.  I object to cheap ammunition just like I object to cheap engine oil.  I’m trying to develop the discipline at the store or online to buy better ammunition.

Right, I’ve got it.  I feel your objection.  Good ammunition (e.g., Hornady $2 per round .270 for my Tikka) hurts.  This is my wealth, and it’s hard to part ways with it since it’s hard to earn it.  But using bad ammunition at the range makes it hard to impossible to assess your practice.  Use of my value pack Federal .223 at the range means that my accuracy is irrelevant if I’m using the same reticle holdovers I would for 5.56mm since the muzzle velocity is different (and very slightly lower than the 5.56mm).  You’ve got the picture.

The best way to get better accuracy is probably not to get a better gun.  It’s to practice with the one you’ve got.

Here is a related video I found interesting on gyroscopic stability.  He’s wrong about the math being incomprehensible, but it is rather difficult if you’re involved with partial differentials or worse, the Navier-Stokes equations in CFD.  You need some specialized training in mathematics in order to tackle that.  You don’t have to know any of that in order to understand the basics of shooting.

This discussion probably won’t end the debate on barrel twist rate, and it certainly won’t end the fight between the Army and Marine Corps (who doesn’t want to deploy the M855A1).  But I hope it was helpful to you.

Prior:

Considerations In Selecting AR-15 Ammunition

Army And Marines In No Rush To Chamber A Common 5.56mm Round

A New Cartridge For The Army?

Army And Marine Corps On M855 Ammunition

AR-15 Animation

Why I Abandoned The AR-15

Does AR-15 Barrel Length Matter?

$3000 Versus $1000 AR-15

Eugene Stoner And Jim Sullivan On AR-15 Engineering And Design

What Length AR-15 Barrel?

We’ve discussed the firing of General Michael Flynn earlier, and followed it up with an informative video.  There are two more videos coming your way in this post, since it’s the best way I know to communicate things in a short and easy manner.  But before we get there, I need to convey a few thoughts.

This writer has some things to say along those lines, pointing to the deep state coup against Michael Flynn and advocating the idea that this wasn’t about Flynn.  It’s about who’s in charge, Donald Trump or the deep state.  But he gets sidetracked by adding these things.

Please don’t come and tell me that Flynn was wrong on Iran, on Islam or on China.  I agree … For better or for worse, it is absolutely evident that Flynn was the brain behind Trump’s entire foreign policy.  On some stuff Flynn was great (Russia), on some stuff he was okay (Takfiri terrorism), on some stuff he was ridiculous (China) and on some stuff he was terrible (Iran).

The writer is correct that the deep state had to bring him down.  He’s wrong on his assessment of Flynn and foreign policy generally.  As for Iran, many writers aren’t able to divorce themselves from loathing of Jews or Israel or the Mossad.  Listen to me, folks.  Our Iran policy should not be based on whatever the Mossad wants us to think.

The problem with Iran is that the Imams believe in the “twelver” view.  They want to see the final Imam come, they want to see a worldwide conflagration, they want Iran to burn in order to start it all, and above all else – yes, above the destruction of Israel – they want to see America burn.  Don’t see Iran in the idiotic Ron Paul way, where if we just stop meddling in foreign affairs we can be friends with these people and trade with them.

Horse shit.  We should stop meddling in foreign affairs, and we should close our borders.  But that won’t change one iota what the Quds or the radical Mullahs think of us or want for us in the end.  We will eventually have to confront Iran, and it’s best to do it with less military force than with greater.  Obama refused even to verbally support the “Green” movement in Iran when they needed it most.  We allowed them to humiliate our sailors, we made pussy deals with them, and thus we empowered Iran.  Sanctions were working to impoverish the country, and then they were removed.  We haven’t even tried yet with Iran, and we seem to want to give up because we have no stomach anymore for anything at all beyond sitting on the couch and watching idiot shows on the TV.

Flynn is also spot on about Islam.  I’m not sure where the writer is getting his view of Islam, but Muslims, many of them, would sooner cut his head off than to look at him, and if they outnumbered him would force conversion to the evils of Mohammedism.  Flynn knew all of these things, and more.  This, along with the fact that he knows where the bodies are buried, so to speak, is why he had to go.  He knows where the assassinated folks are.  He knows who killed the reporters looking into the oil rat lines in Libya.  He knows who killed Monica Petersen.  The writer only got it partially right.  Former CIA director John Brennan is a Muslim, Obama is at least a Muslim-sympathizer, and the country has been infiltrated with Muslim Brotherhood operatives at the highest levels.

Flynn knows all of this, information from the deep state to the Islamic threat, and he knows that there is a pedo ring operating within the highest circles of government.  And he knows that DynCorp and the CIA is taking down Libya and Syria for oil, money, human organs and children.  Flynn wasn’t just some target to show off for the deep state, he wasn’t just an example to everyone else.  Flynn represented a threat to them of the greatest caliber.  This wasn’t random.  Michael Flynn has character and knows as much as they do.  This made him their number one threat.  Got it?

Now, on to the updates and perspectives by those who know more than I do.  Listen to as much of this video by Robert David Steele as you can (it’s a long one).  If you cannot devote the time to this video in its entirety, then watch the first ten minutes.  It would have been better if Alex Jones would shut up.

Then listen to the counterargument, which is that Flynn’s firing is exactly what Donald Trump wanted to happen, the plan being hatched by Flynn himself.  I find this hypothesis very unlikely, and the evidence isn’t hard.  This is all highly speculative with only open source information, whereas I believe that Steele still has good contacts within the intelligence community.

Either way, there is civil war within the highest circles of power in America.  Those circles had better hope the right side wins.  There might be a bigger war after this if it doesn’t go well.

SOFREP:

One way to look at a 60-year-old, battle-worn M1 U.S. service rifle is as a cherished historical relic unfit for any duty more rigorous than color guard. Another way is as a military-grade firearm likely to be snatched up by street toughs and used for common crime. Over the past six years, the Obama administration has seen the gun both ways, leading to a saga that has incensed legislators and gun collectors alike.

There was never any quandry for the State Department, and the Obama administration has never been in favor of this.

I was unaware of this proposed legislation.  It’s about time.  This is something else President Trump can do for liberty in America.  To call the M1 obsolete is ridiculous.  Depending upon price, every one will get bought in the states.

I can see the market supporting $400 – $1000, depending upon condition, and even higher for collectibles in very good condition.  But if the typical price is several thousand dollars even for well-worn rifles, you’re entering the range where you can buy a precision chassis rifle for that kind of money.

The South Koreans will have to be smart about this, or if not, the market will tell them how to be smart about it.  Let them know your support for this bill.

AZ Central:

Maricopa County jails will no longer detain people flagged by federal authorities as a courtesy for the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Sheriff Paul Penzone said Friday evening.

Penzone told reporters that earlier Friday his office had been advised by the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office that he faced a “threat of litigation” because of the procedure, which forced the Sheriff’s Office to change its policy.

Individuals no longer will be detained beyond the time that they otherwise should be released for an offense.

“There’s no further authority to detain an individual …” Penzone said. “We are following our legal obligation, to process that individual for release.”

Penzone said he alerted ICE officials to the change Friday, and the new policy would be effective immediately.

So for all you Sheriff Joe haters out there, it looks like you got your way.  Hey, no worries.  I’m sure it won’t affect the wealth you had set aside to buy that next home, or send your children to college.  Or your gun rights.  I’m sure they’ll vote conservative on those issues.

Welcome to immigrant-land.  I hope you like it.  It’s what you voted for if you’re in his county.  Unfortunately, the rest of us may end up paying your bills.  I’m getting damn tired of paying everyone’s bills.

WAFF.com:

Dear Citizens of Madison County,

My message today is to inform you of an impending Senate Bill in the Alabama Legislature directly threatening the safety for our Law Enforcement Officers and Deputy Sheriffs. It is a threat to law abiding citizens like you and me and a threat to this great state and country.

I am talking about  Alabama Senate Bill 24 (SB24) introduced by Senator Gerald Allen. This bill has proposed the repeal of the current Alabama statute that requires a permit, issued by the Sheriff of the county you reside, to allow for the full concealment of a handgun on your person or in a vehicle.

The pistol permit is a tool used by law enforcement to quickly screen an occupant of a vehicle or a person stopped in investigative detention to determine if they are lawfully allowed to possess a concealed handgun. Lacking a permit, the driver or person is in violation of state statute that prohibits concealed weapons. The permit is issued based upon a background investigation conducted by your local Sheriff and verifies the holder has not been convicted of a crime of violence to include domestic violence. The repeal of the current statute will allow everyone who was previously denied a lawful permit to now be able to conceal a handgun in their vehicle to drive or walk freely to attend church services, enter a movie theatre, football stadium, business or other gatherings in our communities.

Oh it does no such thing.  If you’re as felon convicted of a violent crime, which is about the only legitimate excuse a CLEO can use in Alabama, you can’t legally purchase a gun anyway.  Besides, violent felons won’t care about the law, and can carry as it is right now since you’re not there to watch them get dressed in the morning.

But this is about more, isn’t it?  Yes, it always is.

“As a Sheriff, I firmly back the Second Amendment,” says Abston … “This money generated from the pistol permit goes to buy our uniforms, equipment, our firearms, our training, our ammunition to train and send people to the police academy. Once you take away that funding where’s the money going to come from?”

It’s the revenue.  Don’t worry about slimming down and perhaps NOT buying those brand new Dodge Chargers and fancy comms gear.  Or perhaps laying off those unnecessary workers.  No, the pistol permit fee is a good way to raise money.

Other CLEOs have said the same thing as I’ve noted.

But opponents said it would have serious financial consequences for the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation, which administers firearms licenses issued under the Oklahoma Self Defense Act.

A fiscal analysis performed for the House indicates the measure would reduce OSBI’s revenue by at least $6 million and would lead to the loss of jobs and reduced operating expenses at the agency.

The reduction in revenue would be because firearms owners would no longer seek concealed carry licenses – which cost $100 for initial 5-year license and $200 for 10 years – if they could carry a gun openly without a license. There are now more than 238,300 Oklahomans with active licenses to carry handguns, according to state figures.

And regarding the proposed constitutional carry bill in North Carolina, I’ve said that “I suspect that a little truth-telling by North Carolina CLEOs would yield similar results.”

Perhaps it would be a good thing if the tax monies people allocated to your office were tied to the degree to which they see your services as good and needful, delivered in the right way.

What a novel approach.  I wish someone had thought of that before.

Dear John,

Speaking of getting slapped in the face, James Woods owned you.

Sincerely,

All of us

The deep state is putting its players in place and defenestrating the threats.  Regular readers know what we’re talking about when we say the “deep state.”  We don’t mean whatever idiot Bill Kristol thinks it means.  Nor does it mean what this Breitbart author thinks it means.

Those “deep state” officials include the intelligence, law-enforcement and national security officials who worked in President Barack Obama’s administration but who are still working in permanent or temporary positions in the White House and in surrounding agencies. Many of those officials are believed to be leaking information from within the White House to allies in the anti-Trump media, including Kristol.

That’s a children’s bedtime book version of the deep state.  Regular readers know that the deep state means DynCorp, the CIA, portions of the FBI and DHS, much of the State Department, some local LEOs who have previously worked for DynCorp, former generals, The Clinton Foundation and Clinton Global Initiative, and some others, involved in money laundering, nation toppling, child and organ trafficking, oil trafficking, weapons trafficking, assassinations, and other wicked things to enrich the already wealthy and bring them more power.

Donald Trump was clearly in a war with the deep state and their mouthpiece, the MSM, during most or all of his presidential campaign.  He has lost the war.

Donald Trump has asked a New York billionaire to conduct a review of U.S. intelligence agencies and other aspects of the federal government, current and former officials told NBC News.

Trump’s expected appointment of Steve Feinberg, co-founder and chief executive of Cerberus Capital Management, is causing consternation inside the intelligence agencies, former senior intelligence officials say.

A senior administration official says Feinberg still needs to be cleared by the Office of Government Ethics, which is complicated because Cerberus owns many different companies, some of which have financial relationships with the U.S. government.

But there were indications Thursday that Trump’s plans could be changing.

Current and former intelligence officials told NBC News that Trump’s pick to be director of national intelligence, Sen. Dan Coats of Indiana, was annoyed that the news of Feinberg’s role was breaking before Coats’s Senate confirmation, expected next week.

Asked at a White House news conference if Feinberg would conduct an intelligence review, Trump said, “I think that we are going to be able to straighten it out very easily on its own.”

Trump called Feinberg “a very talented man, very successful man,” and said, “he’s offered his services and you know, it’s something we may take advantage of.”

One former official, who speaks regularly to current senior officials, called Feinberg’s expected role an “extra-constitutional process,” and said Trump believes the intelligence community “needs to be threshed and cleaned and bent to the will of the executive.”

It does, and I’ll bet Feinberg “offered his services.”  But this won’t bend the intelligence community to the will of anyone but the deep state.

Folks, Feinberg is DynCorp, DynCorp is the CIA, the State Department is the political wing of the CIA, and through the JTTF and Fusion Centers, the CIA has infiltrated the DHS, FBI and local law enforcement.  DynCorp has been the hinge pin neck deep in nation toppling in North Africa and grabbing of the resources that became available after the nations of Libya and Syria degenerated into chaos.

Trump will be coopted or molded, or intelligence will be completely hidden from him.  Either way, he will be neutered.  The deep state has won.  We always knew that Trump only gave us more time, not a real change.  Make use of that time.  Regular readers know what to do with that time.

As for Cerberus Capital – which Feinberg owns, my previous articles on Cerberus pointed to a bit of puzzlement on why this conglomerate wanted to buy up firearms manufacturers.  At the time I thought it was a bad idea for small firearms companies to sell to conglomerates like Cerberus, and I said so.  But I hadn’t mentally connected the dots between Feinberg and firearms manufacturers.  Well, I have now.

As best as I can tell, Cerberus still owns Remington, Bushmaster, DPMS, Marlin, Para USA and other companies.  At one time, since Para is located near me, I offered to drive to their offices and interview workers, management, or whomever, take some pictures of guns, discuss their gunsmithing and write a post to promote their work.  I was considering buying a Para USA 1911.

The reaction from Para USA was nothing short of creepy and weird.  “No.  We don’t do that.  Please see our web site.”  It was like no communication I’ve ever had with a firearms manufacturer, and I’ve had more than I can count.  Now that I understand Feinberg and his secrecy, it makes better sense.

Readers can make up their own minds about Cerberus, but I won’t be buying any firearms from them (Freedom Group).  It’s my little way of starving the beast since I will be accountable for all of my actions before a sovereign God, but it won’t be enough.  What?  You didn’t think that those hundreds of millions of dollars that supposedly went to train “freedom fighters” in Syria actually went to train “freedom fighters in Syria,” did you?  And you didn’t really think that any of this war against Michael Flynn was accidental, did you?

Keeping up with George Webb is difficult, but a couple of his latest are embedded below.  They touch on some of these things.

We’ve discussed the ridiculous ban on social security beneficiaries that Obama unilaterally declared before leaving office.  We’ve discussed how the ban applied to those who were deemed, according to various MSM reports, “mentally ill, not only that, severely mentally ill, and moreover, disabled and disordered.”

The reality of the matter is much more pedestrian.  These are folks who no longer work and either choose to or have to have someone do their finances for them.  Absent the issue about no longer working, this includes about half of America.

Furthermore, we’ve seen that the issue doesn’t really pertain to mental illness or severe mental illness or disabilities or disorderly anything.  Mental health professionals have weighed in telling us that they cannot bear the burden America wants to place on them (they have no predictive capabilities for propensity to violence), that mental illness has no correspondence to violence, and that even when mentally ill people commit suicide, they don’t usually use a gun.  Read the reports.  I wouldn’t send you to the links if they weren’t so convincing and absolute.  They are uncompromising.  Mental health professionals absolutely do not want this burden and have no capabilities to fulfill that obligation.  Like pagan tribes worshipping witch doctors, we continue to want to know the future, but alas, doctors cannot do that.  Science doesn’t do that.

I thought I had seen just about everything from Daily Kos.  It has been degrading over the past several years, with run-on sentences, misspellings, poor grammar, poor editing and stale ideas.  But this is a new low, even for them.  The House and Senate have rolled back this Obama ban on social security recipients purchasing guns, and how does Kos spin it?

As part of their ongoing efforts to make America less safe, the Republican Party is doing away with one of the few reforms to America’s lunatic gun policies that followed the murders at Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012. Because it’s important, says the Republican Party, that Americans with mental disorders be able to purchase enough guns and ammunition to murder a few classrooms full of our children if they feel like doing that.

The Republican-led Senate voted Wednesday to block an Obama-era regulation that would prevent an estimated 75,000 people with mental disorders from being able to purchase a firearm. The measure now goes to President Donald Trump, who is expected to sign it.

Social security beneficiaries are going to buy guns and go all rogue on us, shooting up people and places and things.  The fact that they haven’t so far is no excuse for lack of regulation, dammit.

Only later do they state the real sweep of the regulation, which was “to collect a list of the 75,000ish people in America who both have a mental disorder and whose Social Security benefits are managed by someone other than themselves because of that impairment, and forwards that list on to the federal background check system. The goal was to screen out those whose condition is so severe that it renders them unable to make their own financial decisions, under the presumption that those people probably should be among those also least capable of making decisions about when or when not to murder people.”

“Condition so severe that it renders them unable to make their own financial decisions.”  “Murder.”  Tough language for the elderly who want means of self defense and yet need a child to assist them with online finances.  I observed at the time that

I seriously doubt the authors of any of these commentaries know anything about the computer they use as a dumb terminal anyway.

Most of them couldn’t code their way through a hand held calculator and are likely only barely able to operate the calculator on their iPhones to multiply two numbers together.  I’d like to see them solve a differential equation, and upon failure perhaps I could cast doubt on their mental readiness to operate a vehicle.

Say, that’s not a bad idea.  How about the author of this article, who conveniently gives us only one name (only cowards do that), meet up and let me give him a math test to see just how mentally competent he is?  I welcome the opportunity, and I’ll even wager a little on the idea that I can give him simple mathematical problems that stump him.

How about it, Hunter?  Care to take the test?  Or perhaps Hunter knows that the real issue has nothing to do with social security beneficiaries, but rather, a trial balloon to see just how far gun grabbing regulations can go with the American people and just what it will take to roll them back.

I love it when people self-identify as statists.  It keeps me from having to do the hard work.

David Codrea:

No matter – when “progressives” are on a roll, what they want is all that matters. Why should the unconstitutional tyranny of imposing prior restraint punishments without due process on male gun owners (especially the evil white ones who belong to NRA and own “assault weapons” with “30 magazine clips” and “shoulder things that go up”) trump feelings?

No matter that “boyfriend” is hardly a fixed legal term, nor is “date.” There’s also the “Hell hath no fury” factor, along with just finding out you’ve let a confused and hostile bipolar head case vampire cross your threshold, and now you just want them out.

Oh, I think she makes good company for Jennifer Mascia.  Two peas in a pod, or birds of a feather.