Details on the Chicago robbery spree

I did a quick post a few days ago that mentioned the mob robberies in Chicago. Details emerge now on several of the attacks, and I thought one of them warrented some commentary:

In another incident last Saturday evening, Krzysztof Wilkowski, after shopping on Michigan Avenue, was sitting on his scooter a couple of blocks away checking his phone for a restaurant when he got whacked in the face with a baseball.

The very onset of the robbery was initiated with violence, so there was no decision making needed on what the aggressors intentions were. I think hitting someone in the face with a baseball constitutes "serious bodily harm or death," so there can be a solid presumption that things are only going to escalate from there. Then there's this:

At first, he said, he thought it was a prank, but then he looked up and saw 15 to 20 young men approaching. "My first reaction was, 'I'm about to get robbed, what do I do?' " Mr. Wilkowski recalled in an interview.

That would be a hell of a prank. Whenever I've been hit in the face, there's an instinctual reaction in that I'm immediately pissed, even when the hit is from a can of beans falling from a shelf or whatnot. I think it's a natural human reaction, and my primitive ass can't be any different than the next guy. Now, 15 to 20 guys is a major disparity of force, and they are approaching after they have already initiated violence that can cause serious bodily harm -- I think that if I had been the victim here, I would have been able to immediately identify this as a deadly threat. No question. He doesn't mention whether the attackers had weapons, but in this case I don't think it matters:

The 34-year-old insurance company employee from a Chicago suburb grabbed the keys from his ignition and held tight to his phone. A few of the attackers dragged him off his scooter and pulled him onto Chicago Avenue where they punched him, hit him with his helmet and tried to grab his phone.

A group of people taking you to the ground where one stomp on your head or neck can end your life -- that is without question a deadly threat. Add in there that they beat him with a motorcycle helmet. Soldiers and Marines are trained to use their helmet as a deadly weapon, whether it's on their head and being used to head-butt, or if one is picked up off the battlefield and used as a bludgeoning tool, so this is clearly an attack that the victim is fortunate to have survived.

I can't answer the victim's question of "I'm about to get robbed, what do I do?" in this particular attack. I don't ever want to be in a situation where that is the thought that I am having, and I'm sure he feels the same way. Being in Chicago, the victim was no doubt unarmed, which having a firearm would have given him a more advantageous course of action than holding tight to the very object the violent group of men were trying to take when they beat the snot out of him. It also doesn't mean that the victim would have chosen carrying a firearm as an option even if it were legal, but at least it would have been his choice. Lawful armed defense is an option in Virginia, and still there have been attacks on unarmed victims. I'm sure at the time they would have found a handgun to be handy item.

You would be hard pressed to catch me in a Gun Free Zone, as I make it a habit to avoid such places as best as I can. Attacks like this are still relatively rare, but as you can see they still happen. I think avoidance and deterrence are the standard which we should all live by, but if pressed with an attack that can be easily counted as serious harm or death, I won't be the one trying to hold off the crowd with car keys instead of a full-up Glock if I can help it.

Spousal Unit Fail

Little initially put the gun to the dog's head and pulled the trigger several times, but nothing happened, police say the wife told them.

Knowing my wife like I do, I'm certain that if I was sitting on the porch pounding moonshine, snapping a partially loaded revolver at the dog while babbling about how bad my life sucks, she would probably end my suffering temporarily with a frying pan long enough for the state-run help to arrive and give me proper attention. But maybe my wife is different then the vast amount of them out there in that she cares about me, and wouldn't just sit on her ass while I self destructed.

The guy in the article is dead by his own hand, but I have to question the sanity of his wife. Telling the cops that her husband "got tired" of playing russian roulette with the dog means that she had plenty of time to do something to prevent such a tragedy, unless of course she's patiently waiting for that "til death do us part" clause in the marriage contract to be executed (oh, my pun!) so that she can get on with her life. It makes sense then.

King of Battle

A discussion at AFCOM with some awesome video footage of artillery in action. Being on the receiving end of US artillery has got to suck, as I've posted before. Those in the know on the ARFOM thread say that 155mm rounds have a 50 meter kill radius and a 100 meter casualty radius. That first video shows the hurt that one round can produce, and towards the end there's some slow motion footage for your enjoyment.

Dogs bark; snakes bite. . . .

. . .and Willie Nelson smokes pot. Come on Officer DooRight, what did you expect?

A Border Patrol officer smelled pot inside Nelson's tour bus when it was pulled over at a checkpoint on Interstate 10.

You know, I bet if I took a sniff inside my coffee pot, I would probably smell coffee! Weird how that works.

At least the prosecutor has determined that Willie was not endangering the public at the time of the incident, which is odd considering that just about all raging pot-heads are hyper violent sociopaths waiting on their moment to strike, and has basically given him a $800 pass. Just paying his taxes, I guess.

Welcome to the Jungle. . . .

With Cellos! Never would have thought of that, but it sure is bad ass!




If you look closely there at the end, you can see me up on somoeone's shoulders, topless, waiving a Skid Row T-shirt above my head like a helicopter!

Thanks ARFCOM!

Live in Northern Virginia and need shooting supplies?

Andy at Tempestuous Sea has posted a handy NoVA Guide to Guns that has the rundown on what stores there are in the area and what you can get there, as well as gun shows, ranges, and other stuff. Lots and lots of good information.

I'm a native Virginian that's been shooting my whole life, and I didn't know many of the places in this guide. Go check it out.

A firearm on the loose!!

In California, an innocent gangbanger's gun animates itself and shoots a random bystander. At least it didn't hit its intended victim.

Global control

The U.N. is trying to pry into US gun laws again with the usual list of stuff like bans on semi-auto firearms and an international gun registry. If they fail, there's always next year. . . .

Laaaaawww the doooo daaaaa daaaaay

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Laughing to tears

Everytime I read 27b/6, I laugh so hard it hurts. Here is the latest content describing a customer service fail. Go check it out, but I warn you to stay away from liquids until you're done.

1911 Commemorative Knife

A custom knifemaker designs a fighting knife using a 1911 grip that holds a magazine containing survival stuff. Too frickin cool!

Fit and finish look top notch, too!

Open Carry is still fashionable

Yesterday I met with gunnie bloggers Andy and Nancy R. for lunch at Jimmy the Greek in Stafford, Virginia to mind Open Carry Day. Anytime you mix gun-folk, firearms, and a cheeseburger with bacon and a fried egg on top, you have yourself the makings of a good time.

Nancy R. brought her Sweet Daughter who is well behaved and is very fun to talk to. I brought my three kids along, and they were behaved and a little apprehensive at first. I did appologize to the folks at the table next to us as my little people can make quite the show while in public, and they left absolute carnage on and under the table. Andy had just returned from shooting his Colt Walker and Schofield at the range, making his day probably better than all of us! After lunch, I went to my parent's house with hopes that I would be able to obligate someone with the kids long enough to do some shooting, but instead of gunplay I got to watch my brother do some silver smelting, which is neat. I have pictures, but haven't had time to upload them yet.

A Russian version of me!

This guy cracks me up, and not just because of his accent; he is a total gun dork just like I am, although I don't have a blue and red Remington shotgun. I'm sure Mayor Bloomberg is warming up the helicopter for his crack team of felons to investigate the Duracoat on the weapon. Any day now.



I am unimpressed with the flachette rounds. Seems like they don't have enough ass to do what they're designed to do. Launching an arrow from a shotgun is very effective and powerful, as anyone who has ever fired their steel cleaning rod into a tree from the muzzle of an M16 using blanks can attest. The Dragon's Breath rounds are frickin' scary! Don't know how well they would stop an intruder that has broken into your house; it will surely blind you in the middle of the night and set your house on fire, but I bet it only takes one shot to convince even the most determined crackhead that he has the wrong residence.

Magazine capacity is not just for zombies

Police say the victim parked his scooter on the north side of Chicago Avenue across from Wieboldt Hall when between 15 and 20 men and boys approached him around 8:30 p.m.

One of them threw a baseball at the victim's face and knocked him to the ground, an alert from the university said. Several others from the group punched and hit him several times. The victim tried to protect himself and fought back.

Tried being the key word here, there are effective tools on today's market that would have made the victim's resistance much more suitable to a mob attack. Too bad that such tools are not an option for Chicagoans who wish to avoid the legal system.

Empty handed defense against superior numbers only works in the movies, not really real life, which is why the arguement to "be a man and fight with your hands" instead of carrying a modern defensive tool is a baseless possition to hold.

Kids say the darndest things

A verbal transaction between my 2 year old and me about 90 seconds ago as I was addressing a dangerously loaded diaper on my 1 year old:

CTone the Younger: "Daddy, is that poooooop?"
Me: "Yes, that's poop."
Ctone the Younger: "Daddy, we don't poop on the floor!"
Me: "That's right, we don't poop on the floor."
Ctone the Younger: "And we don't poop on pretzels!"
Me: "Uuuuhhmm, that's right, we don't poop on pretzels. Definitely not."

The strange things that kids say is one of the greatest benefits of having children.

I'm sending my Glock in for Ninja Fluting right away!

How to Ninja Pimp your Glock, posted without commentary.




Found here at ARFCOM

A Kukri in the hand is better than the one at home

In total he fired off 250 general purpose machine gun rounds, 180 SA80 rounds, six phosphorous grenades, six normal grenades, five underslung grenade launcher rounds and one Claymore mine.

The only weapon he did not use was the traditional Kukri knife carried by Gurkhas because he did not have his with him at the time.

A Gurkha Soldier is awarded the Conspicuous Gallantry Cross for killing 30 Taliban fighters using the above instruments of death, as well as a tripod for a machine gun. A Kukri would not only have made a better tool for the slaughter, but would have made a bad-ass story one of legend. The moral of the story is to never leave your killing tools at home.

Found at Ace of Spades.

More video clips on the FN SCAR PDW

Defense Review has some more footage of the SCAR PDW in action where you can see the reciprocating charging handle in all its jamming-potential glory. I'm not too fond of reciprocating charging handles either, although on longer guns like an SKS and AK they don't bother me; though I wouldn't want it on such a short little death machine like the teensy weensy SCAR.

Ooooh - also check out their review and full-auto video footage of Colt's Sub Compact Weapon (SCW). I blogged about that carbine last year when I was at the Modern Day Marine Convention. The folding stock is definitely interesting, and time will tell if it will hold up under combat conditions.

Still reading down Defense Review's front page, I see they shot H&Ks 416C, which is a PDW type carbine based on the AR platform. Who would have guessed that H&K was so stingy with the ammo? At least they didn't load the rounds into the magazine backwards.

Electronic doodads for warriors

Another app, called "SoldierEyes," turns a smartphone into a sort of battlefield navigation device. In addition to displaying a digital map, it features an "augmented reality" mode that enables the user to flip on the camera and scan the horizon. Digital markers pop up on the screen, displaying the direction and distance to objectives on the battlefield.

The Army is looking to field cellphone-like devices, smartphones and tablets to Soldiers to help them do better things on the battlefield. I'm all for Soldiers having the tools to kill bad guys, but lets hope the device(s) the Army chooses turn out to be more reliable than the devices that I have. My year old Samsung smartphone catches only one email out of fifty, locks up for minutes at a time, turns off at random, and on full volume can barely be heard. I would hate to hear about how one of our warriors got killed because his I-Trash superphone couldn't muster enough electrons to get that call-for-fire message out. In my experience, electronic devices are not reliable enough for me to place my faith in.

Back to the grind

Memorial Day weekend in the CTone family was spent with the little ones at Virginia Beach. We all had a blast, and it was a lot of work. Keeping three toddlers out of trouble was interesting to say the least, but it was worth it:



I saw on Drudge last night that it was mayhem in Miami, Myrtle Beach, Boston, and other touristy coastal venues over the weekend. Not so at VAB. It was certainly crowded, but everybody was super nice. My wife and I managed to keep the kids busy, and not hang out in the hotel. Since my laptop died on the first morning we were there, I had to find out via trial-and-error whether the VAB Zoo and the VAB Aquarium were Gun Free Victim Pastures; they were not. It was a comforting thing too; the VAB Zoo is not in a friendly part of town, and some parts of the Hampton Roads area is sketchy.

I was pleased that my trusty Kel-Tec didn't rust at all while sitting in my bag on the sand. Not that I thought I would need it, but it was nice to know it was there. My shiny new Spyderco Pacific Salt with its H1 steel was the perfect folding blade for the weekend as well. It rode faithfully in my swim trunks in the ocean every day, and got rinsed off passively in the highly chlorinated hotel pool; a pretty harsh environment all around for a piece of steel. On the last evening we were there, I finally rinsed off all the crunchy sand it had accumulated in the sink at the hotel, and there wasn't a hint of corrosion. Last night I put it on a stone for the first time to get rid of the factory edge, and it honed up well. Mike Janich had mentioned that H1 steel work hardens, and that over time as you sharpen it the edge will get better and better. I was amazed at how sharp it got last night on my first try, and it didn't take long. Not just hair popping, but face shaving sharp. Just the ticket for an EDC blade that does a great deal of light work:



I haven't put it into anything tough yet, but it slices through carboard just fine, and works great at making PB&J sandwiches.

I'm still waiting on the barrel for my MK12 Mod 0 build, and I owe a picture of how that's going. I'll do that tonight if I have a chance. I am also now on the hunt for a computer that lasts more than a month or two. My dead ASUS that had fried its last hard drive will soon meet its fate to the tune of a box or two of shotgun shells and some gasoline and matches. Maybe I'll take some pictures of that too.