The inspiration I needed

From this post this morning, I got a comment from Nancy R. from Excels at Nothing about shooting a little airsoft while stuck in the house. While I don't have any airsoft, that comment did spark an interest in the ol' Daisy PowerLine 880 that sits in the corner of the man cave.

The wife and I had decided that since the kids had stopped coughing this morning, and that the noses weren't running after nap, we would go to the mall to let them unwind for awhile. Walking around there I got the comment on my BlackBerry, and the chain reaction in my several brain cells told me that I needed some 1" rings so that I can replace that crappy no-powered plastic thing on top of the Daisy referred to as an "optic," and in its place put the crappy Daisy PowerLine 3-9 that I had laying around.

The difference is tremendous. It's like putting a freakin' Nightforce on the thing.

Here's a before and after:




I shoot the thing in my basement, and my backstop is the PASGT vest from my Ballistic Vest Live Fire Test; but that's just to stop pellets from hitting the drywall. Behind that is eight inches of concrete and fifty feet of dirt:



The distance is 33':



Once I got the beast sighted in with BBs (2nd dot from the bottom), I fired one pellet at full power at the 2nd dot from the top, and then clicked the crosshairs over to the shot hole. The best 5-shot group I had with the plastic optic like tube was 1.053" CTC, and after the swap the first and only 5-shot group measured .740", all inside the 2nd dot from the top. The top dot was me fiddling around with the clicks:



So I basically trimmed a quarter of an inch or better off a ten yard group by buying a $7.99 pair of Simmons airgun rings. Can't beat that!

Next up is to Pimp my Pellet Gun! I've been wanting to Duracoat the 308 for some time now, and I'm not about to test my artistic skills on it until I know what I'm doing. Haven't used an airbrush for awhile, but I intend to get ahold of one soon. Some paint on the Daisy should work great to test it out. Then the neighborhood starlings won't see me coming!

The People Coop

We got about ten inches of mother nature's finest this weekend, and we've been stuck in the house for days. The kids are especially miserable since they've been sick with the flu, and then a nasty sinus cold, since the day after Christmas. They haven't been outside of the house for days, and they're starting to tear the walls down.

I've been reluctant to take them anywhere in public because I don't want to be the jackass who gets thirty other kids sick. This sinus cold is super contagious. Some douchbag gave it to me like the day after I kicked the flu, and I'm still fighting it three weeks later. Unfortunately, I gave it to everyone in the house. It's a terrible thing to see little children fight something that gives an adult a tough time. They don't understand what's going on.

On top of that, giving little kids medicine right before cleaning their noses out can equal what can only be described as mild torture. My son's nose is raw and chapped, and he fights tooth and nail when we hold him down and suck his nose out with the blue, snot sucking bulb of doom, which comes after a blast of saline up the snout. Horrible stuff.

Last weekend I couldn't take it any longer and took the kids to the Bass Pro Shops in Ashland. They loved it. I highly recommend it for the little ones as there is so much stuff to look at. I pointed out to them every cute and cuddly little perfectly preserved critter, and everyone in earshot got a chuckle when they pointed out the ones they knew - screaming "daddy, daddy, daddy. . .wook, wook. . . . it's a kyooooodddddiieeeeee!" If you're heading there, be advised that Bass Pro Shops does not take kindly to people who care to arm themselves for personal defense. This is the reason why I tend to throw my money to their competition right down the road at Green Top; but I will gladly let my kids shout at their stuffed creatures.

Anyways, morale here is pretty low - the cable box in the wreck room where the kids play has gone TU; the snow is too deep for the kids to play in; it's 19 degrees outside, which is too cold to take the kids for a walk in the wagon; can't take the kids to the mall because of the moral issue of passing The Sickness on to other kids; and I can't justify slipping out for a little shooting as that would make me a dick.

Today is just not going to be much fun.

Rant of the week

Ace of Spades is a daily read of mine, and man can that guy throw down an awesome rant! Language warning, by the way.

Assault thingy violence

Someone needs to inform DA Nola Foulston that the words "sniper" and "SKS" do not belong in the same sentence. Or the word "assault weapon" for that matter as the SKS is not one. Oil and water - you can't make them mix.

Scott Roeder is really freakin creepy though.

We interupt this blog to bring you breaking news. . .

Hungry coyotes are feeding on timid hippies in the Greenburgh, NY area. Be on the lookout.

The motive in the attack has not been confirmed, but the empathetic hippie victim believes that the coyote was angry over an alleged robbery that happened some time ago.

Brave local police advise that when hiking in the woods, make sure that you are armed with at least one rat-tailed comb to fend off the beast, and perhaps a rape whistle to ensure the other coyotes know the exact location of the kill attempt in order to discourage them from approaching.

This little boy needs some guidance, badly. .

Hey, I hate it when my neighbors dog barks 23 1/2 hours every day too; but kid, seriously, knock on the door and tell the guy to shut his dog up.

Tough love for thieves

Wow. I did not know that stealing $200 worth of stuff in Virginia could land you a felony conviction. I don't reckon most thieves get their conviction overturned though. I bet now that he served his time, he'll re-think petty thievery next time he's out shopping.

Your daily dose of stupid

Haven't done one of these in awhile, but this morning I did a face palm when I read this:

“There should be one standard for applying for what is a constitutional right,” Timilty said.

Can anyone tell me what's wrong with this sentence?

At issue here is the licensing of human beings who have unalienable rights by police chiefs in order for those human beings to exercise said rights to own, carry, and operate private property in the form of a firearm. Simple, no?

So by this douchebag's confession, it's yippy skippy for some police chief, endowed with powers privileged upon him or her from citizens, to issue unalienable rights with a new law? Exactly how does a police chief have the authority to give rights to citizens, when those citizens are the ones who give the authority to the police chiefs?

When I buy groceries, I own them. The groceries are my property. When I feed those groceries to my kids, I sure don't ask them for permission to own the groceries. Now I would never deny my kids food, that's not what I'm saying, but I don't ask permission to own things that I already know I own. It's simple commerce.

It's become very obvious that people in today's America no longer understand Common Law, nor the simple laws of commerce hewn from thousands and thousands of years of human interaction. When you own things, you do not ask permission to use those things - unless of course you have trusted them to someone else for whatever reason. I guess if people don't understand how they own things in the first place -- in this case rights -- then there is no way they could possibly understand trust. Somehow in the naked simplicity of all of this, where 5,000 years ago a caveman, literally, could do it, modern "advanced" society forgot what the hell was going on.

So now that people in the most powerful country on earth don't understand property and the ownership associated with it, I can't see where this knowledge will ever return unless a big ass meteor wipes out like 99% of the population and things start over. We're very happy these days that we don't live in mud huts and hunt with clubs like our ancient ancestors, but at least they knew what the hell was theirs.

My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge

Hosea 4:6 and many other Bible verses warn against willful ignorance. This is an encouragement to read The Word so that you can be informed of the Truth; a call to arm yourself with facts so to speak.

This has other applications, because how can you be a good spokesman if you are uninformed?

With that in mind, I encourage you to take a look at Gun Facts - a very informative website to arm yourself with quick and to the point facts on gun issues. This is an excellent resource of information covering just about every political hot point on gun control.

Go check it out!

Hmmmm. . . .DC locals are Thrilled about Maryland reciprocity

The poll at NBC 4 Washington is at 93% right now.

Maryland carry

Don't get your hopes up, but Maryland of all places may soon have reciprocity with Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Delaware.

It's a start.

The mistake of a lifetime

Literally.

Scumbag beats the death penalty in VA Supreme Court for killing a girl and raping her sister, but then gets put back on death row for basically the same charges because he bragged about the details of the murder in a nasty confession letter sent to the prosecutor.

Ooops.

His execution date has not yet been set.

Wanted: the rest of the freakin story

Update at the bottom.

A Virginia man was arrested in New Jersey yesterday on weapons charges. The NBC 4 Washington article goes well out of its way to paint this in the most harrowing light possible, but something smells fishy; notably, the absence of any important details, and the overwhelming amount of journalistic accoutrements.

OK, so this guy is wearing body armor and runs from the cops, who then tackle him and find a rifle on him? Were these uniformed cops? If they were plain cloths, I can see how someone would run from them. How many cops have you met that would tackle a guy with a rifle? They had to have seen it on him. More likely they would surround him with weapons drawn, and then shoot him if he grabbed the rifle. These are New Jersey cops we're talking about, and the article says that the guy was acting suspicious, whatever that means these days.

The central part of the story is that the guy had a map of a military installation on him. Whoopty do. Perhaps he had an AAFES map, of even worse, a Google satellite image. I mean, this could mean just about anything; that he had an easily acquired map of a military base doesn't automatically make him Al-Qaeda, despite how desperate the media would like it to be so. If I turn out to be wrong, well, I've eaten plenty of crow in my day.

Next, we have positive confirmation that the onslaught of emails correcting news monkeys on the differences between semi-auto and full-auto weapons seems to be sinking in, but we still have some work to do with that childish "assault thingy" term that they sit around all day waiting to use. And apparently it now only takes two weapons to equal a "cache," or otherwise known as a "host" of weapons. One of these dreaded beasts is what's reported to be a M240 grenade launcher, but that can't be verified right now because a) it's being reported by a goon who works in a news organization that is using a picture of a M240 found on the internet, and b) because cops in New Jersey generally don't know the make and model of any firearm that is not issued to them.

Man arrested in possession of Winchester Model 70, and Ruger 10/22. What the cops report - "Man, I'm tellin' youse right now that this is the same gun used in dat movie Eraser!"

How the news reports it - "Cops tonight report that they caught a dangerous, sex offending, transvestite "teabagger" with a massively large cache of what appears to be two of those R2D2 lazer thingies used in the movie Under Siege 2. Here's Tom with the weather."

Also of interest, our esteemed bad guy had "high power ammunition," which probably means WWB ammo from Wal-Mart. Let's hope he didn't have any of that super deadly Extreme Shock ammo, because things could have really gotten out of hand. Note that he was charged with having "armor penetrating bullets," which I'm guessing that in NJ means that it was ball ammo, but I could be wrong. It really doesn't matter, as any .223 Remington ammunition, or centerfire rifle cartridges for that matter, can penetrate a bullet resistant vest. That's a fact.

The only thing that points to him being a possible scumbag is the defaced serial number. I'm sure that there's still more to that than meets the eye.

Again, he may turn out to be a bona fide scumbag, but I'm just not seeing it. That cops in general, and reporters specifically, don't know jack about what type of firearm is which, and adding the fact that both parties are well known for pouring on USDA Grade A+ awesomesauce onto anything they do, I have to have doubt. When there is a documented effort to accurately report the facts as they really are, then I will start to give merit to stories like this.

I'll post more on this if I can get it.

Update: The FBI is saying that the guy is not a terrorist. The press goes into full blown BS mode and is saying the guy had an anti-tank rifle because it was chambered in .50 caliber - meaning it was chambered in the .50 Beowulf cartridge from Alexander Arms. The other rifle is a 308, and the grenade launcher is a Cobray 37mm, which to my knowledge only launches flares. So much for that. Also, tremble in your boots knowing that this guy had a "middle eastern head scarf." Hopefully the cops don't find any more of his deadly stash.

Oh say can you Sea

I'm not sure why, but I've always admired the look of old warships.

Cool stuff!

Rust proof blades

You can get them!

Highlighted at Sharp, Bright, and Tactical WebMagazine, Spyderco and Benchmade both have rustproof knives for those sea faring individuals who work around or in salt water.

I have always wondered about the merits of the corrosion resistant steels, which leads me to question why firearm manufacturers don't use them for military weapons. I would think Marines and SEALs would love to have to have a rifle that doesn't need to have oil applied ten minutes after hitting the beach, and perhaps Soldiers wouldn't mind skipping out on slathering their rifle with CLP every now and then.

Hmmmm.

Jury nullification

I am completely surprised that a DC jury acquitted a man for carrying a loaded handgun in the district via nullification.

Good on em'!

This is a clear cut case where the law caught the wrong guy, but the citizens rightfully turned things around. Had they not interfered in this Marine's case, the wheels of justice would have crushed an innocent man.

It's cases like these that make gun owners so opposed to gun laws. Considering that armed scumbags run DC streets with impunity, and that when they're caught they get treated pretty well compared to anywhere else, one can only conclude that these laws don't prevent any sort of violent behavior.

At any rate, barring a Marine from having a loaded weapon should be a crime.

Found via The Agitator.

HS Student will not be expelled for not having firearm on school property

What a waste of time, money and effort.

Gary Tudesko, 16, was thrown out of Willows High School after a shotgun, shells and hunting knife were found in his truck which he says was parked off campus.

Today, the Glenn County School Board overturned that expulsion saying he was 'not afforded a fair hearing'.

Ah, it's not because the school board would get their ass handed to them in court, it's really just about a technicality. Ok then.

The kid obeyed the "Gun Free School Zone" farce and parked his truck outside of it, but that's not good enough because some other student could hit a tennis ball outside of the school grounds force field of safety.

I guess 1,000 feet is not enough. Perhaps we should expand the force field by doing a simple test where a student hits a tennis ball as far as he can from the edge of the zone. But then what happens when a student hits a tennis ball from the edge of the new force field?

The solution here is to ban tennis. That way some clumsy kid doesn't hit his ball outside of the school grounds force field of safety and into the danger zone. Wouldn't want to hit a truck with a shotgun and some birdshot in it. Or even have the ball land in the yard of a dreaded sex offender.

This sort of nuttiness reminds me of that commercial, Chucky Cheese perhaps?, where the mom lovingly wraps her sons in bubble wrap before letting them go outside.

Hey buddy. . . got a light?

In spades, my friend.

Last night a friend and I decided to do an equipment check for a foray into the wild world of hunting predators. I bought an el-cheapo WorkForce 1Mil candlepower spotlight and spiced it up with a little red brake-light tape, and then bolted on some picatinney mounts that I had lying around. Llllllllllllllike a Glove!!!!

The rigged spotlight works perfect, and before I put the red tape on the lens I did a side-by-side comparison against my Surefire 6P and Streamlight TLR-1, with 65 and 135 lumens, respectively. The tactical lights held their own. I was particularly impressed with the TLR-1; it cast a long perfectly white beam out to the 120 yards that I could see, and it had a nice bright cone for searching that lit up anything inside of fifty yards. The 6P was quite nice as well, although I need to get the 120 lumen head for it.

We sound checked the various calls that my friend had, and we managed to call in a huge owl. That thing just about scared my heart out of my chest; he came in all stealth-ninja and landed in a tree about ten yards away. How they can soar through the woods with a five foot wingspan and not make a freakin sound is downright amazing. I don't know much about owls, but this one didn't seem to appreciate the red filter on my spotlight. Does anyone out there know if they can see the red light spectrum?

We weren't at it for very long; last night was mainly about finding out if our gear worked or not. This was all on my friend's property, and he has seen an abundance of coyotes, foxes, and bobcats recently. Night time hunting works for both of us in particular - working through the week from dark to dark is the norm, and when we get home it's time to be a daddy for a few hours until the kids go to bed. I didn't get into the woods for deer season the first stinkin time this year as I didn't have the time to go; not that I had anywhere to go anyways. There is a subdivision or a Starbucks in every patch of what used to be woods that I hunted in my youth.

I have a feeling that shooting coyotes in the dark may turn out to be awesomeness. In my humble opinion, the AR platform was taylor made for the role, and I'm going to be playing around with different gear until I find out what works the best.

Why the Swiss are so freaking awesome!

Oh yeah! Government mandated ammo!

Anyone else find it weird that they put a chain on the rifles at the range? My guess is that it's to make sure that they don't switch weapons while qualifying, or something like that. I can't imagine that it would be to keep them from going buck wild with the thing since they keep them at home with gov't purchased ammunition.

Found at MilitaryPhotos.net. from poster skyeye.

Why I don't go to Disney Land

Rodney Dillon, 65, is charged with 55 counts of possession of child pornography and one count of promoting the sexual performance of a child.

Dillon is a security guard at Disney's Hollywood Studios. He checks guest's bags at the park's entrance.

That's pretty much the whole article. The guy that ensures that the peaceable people entering the park are disarmed and defenseless is also the guy who fantasizes about your child.

Awesome.

At least the park is now safe, right?

Well duh!

Study: Terrorists can be turned away from violence. Well that is absolutely fascinating, but I already knew that.

The Washington Institute for Near East Policy blew countless dollars establishing the same thing that Soldiers, Marines, Special Forces, the Navy, and the Air Force have known for hundreds of years: that a would be terrorist can be persuaded from doing the deed by some outside force.

In this case, the study suggests that terrorists change their minds at the behest of family members, imams, poor food quality, and stinginess. In the case of our brave and noble Armed Forces, they suggest that such things like hand grenades, accurate machine gun fire, artillery fires, pinpoint missile strikes, and high level nightime bombing can also cause terrorists to change career paths; and that the reason that family members are concerned, and the terrorist training camps are ad hoc, and the food sucks, and the senior al-Qaida leadership is reluctant to hand out money like it's 2001 is because mean bands of bad-ass warriors under the US flag parachute in at night and put steel on target.

Watching your friends get blown to smithereens in the dark by an artillery shell called in from over twenty miles away while they're digging a hole in the middle of the road has that sort of effect on people. Now, if only we could leverage that kind of effect on Jihadi Jim here in the states, we could keep them at bay for good.

I'm thinking something like paid admission into FedEx field to watch KSM and the other members of the Derka Derka spirit squad get devoured by lions, wolverines, and sharks with laser beams on their heads. What's not to like? Tell me you would send your loved one off with a pat on the ass to attack some country knowing that they will likely get caught, and when they do there will be tens of thousands of infidels getting drunk and roaring madly when a huge cat tears his limbs off!!

Didn't think so.

But that's not happening right now because we're instead trying to figure out how to make Americans love Islam. Right now, a Gallup survey shows that Americans don't like Muslims very much, and the same article says the Obama administration is doing everything in its power to make Muslims love us. Not mentioned however, is that the US does not have troops prosecuting a war in two Christian, Jewish or Buddhist countries. When was the last time a Buddhist attacked the US? Exactly. It's like reporting a study that Virginians are more concerned about avoiding black bears than polar bears. If Jews start blowing up their underwear while on US planes, then Americans are going to lose "positive opinion of that group's distinguishing characteristic." It's that simple.

I hope none of these not-very-insightful studies are paid for with taxpayer money.

Scope ring issues

I have been having issues with the scope on the 308 shifting inside of the rings. That can't be good for accuracy. The good folks on Sniper's Hide have given me some advice to remedy the problem, so check out the thread there to see what I've done.

I'll update it when I shoot again.

Freedom of. . .Of religion, not freedom from it

The totally unbiased and not at all left wing big box news agencies like the AP and ABC News are shitting kittens on the discovery that Trijicon has scripture verses encoded in the serial numbers of optics sold to the military. Apparently, since they were unaware of this sinfulness, it's "secret," which is weird because everybody and their brother who is not a Marxist shill has known about it for years.

I never understood the reason that most lefties that I've encountered have such a visceral hatred towards any God fearing person. Or anyone who even mentions his name, for that matter. People can believe in what they want. Why such angst?

Anyways, to get an idea of how bad the gnashing of teeth is over at ABC News, see "Secret Jesus Bible Codes on U.S. Military Weapons." I mean, come on! "Jesus Rifles!?!?" "Christian Crusades against Islam?" Really?

And Gen. Nash, what in the world have you been smoking? Because you have a problem with Secret Jesus Bible Codes labeled in the serial number on rifle scopes, but not say, scripture written on Soldiers' issued helmet covers, you want to force the Pentagon via legal fiat to blow millions of taxpayer dollars grinding the serial numbers off the scopes and stamping new ones. Yeah, let's a genius idea! It's not like that money could go towards buying more important stuff, like for instance ammunition, or perhaps more Trijicon rifle scopes that will enable our Soldiers and Marines to kill terrorists from several hundred yards outside of their effective range. We wouldn't want to offend them, or make them think that America is waging a war against Islam with Jesus Rifles! Anything but that! And while we're at it, maybe we should "punish monetarily" Chrysler Defense by making them paint the M1A1 Abrams tank with a graffiti proof coating to keep crusading Soldiers from painting Secret Jesus Codes on the main gun.

Have you hugged an Islamic terrorist today?

The pants wetting shows just how utterly irrational people can be. "Spiritually Transformed Firearm of Jesus Christ?" "Iraqi Soldiers touched those tainted rifles!" How do we sleep at night!?!

I personally find it hard to believe that any Islamic militant would have some sort of "our god vs your god" mentality against a powerful and predominantly Christian nation sending hundreds of thousands of Christian warriors into their country to kill them. Don't offend them with your religious rifles - shoot them with em', or drop bombs on the building they're in. That's cool.

Seriously, this is stuff right out of the Guidebook for Being a Perpetually Outraged Hippie. Marines? Not really outrageous. Rifles for Marines? Kind of outrageous. Scripture on rifles for Marines? Outrageous. Marines killing people with rifles? Not so outrageous. Marines killing people with Jesus Rifles? Outrageously outrageous. Marines in caskets because we spent defense money on erasing serial numbers instead of more rifle scopes? Totally cool.

Now that I'm thinking about it, we should tell the Pentagon to immediately make the entire armed forces atheist, and fully fund the effort with the next year's defense budget. Let's also kill off all the Chaplains, since they are men and woman who are awash in the blood of the Lamb. That way, we never make our enemies mad at us ever, ever, ever again.

This flawed ideology is the reason wars are lost. When your own countrymen would rather spend defense money appeasing your enemy instead of killing them with righteous firepower, than your enemy is already inside the wire.

Guns of Undead

Head over to Hell in a Handbasket to see some movie guns! Shotguns and 1911s always make me smile!

Turesday morning roundup

Not one, but two articles in the Washington area news about VCDL's Lobby Day. Curiously none of the bloodshed from all those gun owners was mentioned. From the looks of one of the articles, the locals are thrilled. The other pretty much shills for the anti gun families of the VA Tech massacre by using the typical raw emotion rather than fact. Not mentioned is that it took three minutes for the cops to even get to the building during the VA Tech massacre, and that it took several more minutes to get inside. I guess playing dead on the lawn in Richmond was appropriate.

Finally, someone who listens to those who elected him. Spend less instead of take more? Crazy stuff. Who would have thought that Virginians were tired of paying taxes, or that the ABC Department are a bunch of tyrannical yahoos? Although I see speed limits as money making ventures that have nothing whatsoever to do with public safety, seeing it raised 5 mph means nothing. Everyone knows that in VA you just keep the speedo pinned at 79 mph and you're good-to-go.

Five lucky Washingtonians get to be really real jihadis in a Pakistani prison! Enjoy that local spa treatment fellas!

Public schools managing your kids hair length. Yup! It's gonna be private school for my kids!

Ummmm, last I heard, wild animals are not pets. Pets are domesticated animals that are linked to a responsible person; thousands of wild roaming deer that eat azaleas and get struck by cars do not match that description. Honestly, I'm surprised that Texans even took the time to ask for permission to kill them off.

Range Report

Saturday was supposed to be my mental health day, but it turns out, "day" = several hours in my world. Sadly, my plans to shoot with a friend went south, so I instead jumped in my truck and headed South for some shooting on private property.

I wanted to try a new OCW test with some 175 grain Sierra Match Kings over Varget, and I put some rounds down range there. My shoot was somewhat inconclusive, and you can read all about it at the Practical Riflery Forum where I have some pics posted.

On top of that shooting, I wanted to shoot some 80 grain Cor-Bon and some 100 grain Buffalo Bore Hard Cast through the Kel-Tec P3AT to see how they group. I was not disappointed.

Traditionally, the little .380acp has never been known as a go-to round for reliable self defense. A 100 grain FMJ round traveling at 800 fps will get the job done, but maybe not in the time frame you were hoping for. Now that the cartridge is getting some serious attention, ammunition companies are cranking out some serious rounds for it. A friend had given me some of the Cor-Bon rounds to load up with, but I had only fired a couple of them to see where they hit. I have since bought more of them, although they are very hard to find. I ordered a couple of boxes of the Buffalo Bore because they seem readily available.

I'd like to add that I've fired about 150 rounds of practice ammo through this gun, and it has never missed a beat. Blaser ammo is pretty mild stuff, especially in a 9 oz gun, but the Cor-Bon and Buffalo Bore are a different matter entirely. Both loads are absolutely fierce. The manual that came with the Kel-Tec says +P rounds are fine, but to not make a habit of shooting them all the time. After firing a box through the gun, I was not interested in shooting any more of them.

With both rounds, the recoil is manageable, but the thin backstrap (mmmmmm, backstraps!) of the little blaster really cuts into your hand. Velocities from the 80 grain Cor-Bon clocked in at at an average of 1,007 fps, and the Buffalo Bore clocked in at 1,033. The Buffalo Bore was more consistent than any handgun ammo I have ever fired, and it's accurate at that. Even with the non-existent sights, I was still able to shoot a 3.88" and 2.87" group at 15 yards, and a group of Cor-Bon went into 2.73" at the same distance. Groups were fired from a Caldwell shooting rest off the top of my truck. Here's a pic of my target:


I don't have them marked very well, but you can see the Cor-Bon 5-round group circled on the right of the big target, with the individual shot holes circled, one just inside the black at 3 o'clock. The first Buffalo Bore group is the two un-circled shot holes in the center of the Cor-Bon group, plus the three just below it. The five round group circled that is to the right of the little black dot are from the second Buffalo Bore group, the third group from them being the three shots above the little black dot, as well as the two inside the bull on the big target which were all fired from a weak hand pocket draw at seven yards. They do sting the hand a bit, but five rounds inside of a fist at 15 yards is amazing for such a teeny gun. I put the two rounds in the center of the bull by taking just a fraction of a second longer to line the sights up properly. The gun is quite capable of putting them all in there from that distance. Something to keep in mind, always check your ammo before you load them into your magazine or gun. This is especially true of self defense ammo, as you wouldn't want this round at the top of the stack when the bad man is braying at your door.

I think I'll stick with the Buffalo Bore as my SD ammo. Some may snicker that they're not hollow points, but one thing I always notice is that everyone ponders whether their favorite SD round in all of the trendy cartridges will make it to the vitals or not. 100 grains of hard cast lead at over 1k fps will make it just fine, and I'll take that over expansion any day.

The last thing I wanted to do was to check some accuracy handloads in my AR15, and to make sure they hit to POI at 100 yards. I plan on doing some nighttime predator hunting soon and wanted better accuracy than my mass produced zombie rounds offered. About a year ago I had loaded some rounds that in the past would consistently put five rounds into half and inch, but I had loaded CCI 450 primers instead of the traditional CCI 400. It doesn't seem to matter, as they shot under an inch from a hasty rest and firing at the glint from a staple holding my target up. Velocity averaged 2,893 in a 16" barrel. I'm using new Winchester cases, 52 grain SMKs, and 25 grains of Benchmark.

Let me tell ya, I love Benchmark. I mix Benchmark in my smoothies and sprinkle it on my burgers. Snorting it works well too, but I can't get it to flow through a syringe. Maybe it'l go if it's mixed in the smoothie. Anyways, I need to give it a try with in the 308. When I get time, I need to post a picture of the crappy 1 million candle power spotlight that I have mounted on my AR for lighting up coyotes in the dark. I need to make a red filter for it first, though.

That's it folks. I will be doing another OCW test with Varget and the 175 grain SMKs just as soon as I can get some new Winchester cases.

Down with the sickness. . . again!

Really, really frustrating.

I have stuff to post, but don't know when that will be. My whole family has been sick as a dog this entire weekend, and it sucks like you wouldn't believe. It's heart wrenching when little kids feel like crap; you wish you could just take it all away.

So we're off to the doctors today, if they're open. More posts to follow if the kids take a nap today, which may or may not happen depending on how they feel.

"I'll take the M4. . .with all the accoutrements . . .well done please"

The New York Times, of all places, has a rather awesome torture test of M4 rifles complete with kablooeys and fire.

One has to wonder why anyone would volunteer to fire a rifle in that way until it fails catastrophically. Kabooms are no laughing matter, and the results often lead to blood loss.

Still, the gun did a pretty excellent job, all things considered. I've never encountered weapon related issues with the M16 or AR15 rifles. Most jammages I've had were either user error, magazine related, or issues with ammunition: like that time at Paris Island where my next to last shot at the 500 yard line on qual day ended up going POP instead of BANG, with my bullet noticeably hitting the berm about eight feet down from the bull, which cost me the coveted Battalion High Shooter award. I did get the Company High Shooter award though.

Found at SaysUncle.

Law enforcement fail

Craig Owen Vaczy, 30, pleaded guilty to malicious wounding Wednesday in Fredericksburg Circuit Court. As part of a plea agreement, prosecutor Travis Bird dropped three other charges and agreed to cap Vaczy's sentence at five years. Vaczy will be sentenced March 17.

So the crazy guy got five years in the slammer - what's the problem?

The problem would be the other charges were abduction, robbery, and burglary, as well as prior arrests for domestic assault, battery, grand larceny, identity fraud, violating probation, multiple counts of forgery, malicious wounding, obtaining goods under false pretenses, and who knows what else. Check out the only comment at the first link.

I haven't been able to verify the other thirty-something charges, but what I have posted is enough for me to ask Spotsylvania prosecutor Travis Bird, and whomever the prosecutors are for Stafford and Fredericksburg: what the hell are you doing? Have you lost your mind? Why was this man out and about and able to break into a resident's home, break his jaw, tie him up, and steal his property? Why did his ten year sentence for malicious wounding, two year sentence for stealing, and two year sentence for forgery get suspended? They happened at different times, so that - combined with his other criminal activity - should have been taken into account beforehand and he should have been taken out of society. What happens in five years when this unstable and violent man gets out of jail and decides that, since he can't get a job because he's a felon, that he will go back to his old ways and start burglarizing, assaulting, abducting, or maliciously wounding because it seems that prosecutors have no problems dropping charges and giving multiple chances at being a dangerous criminal?

This man is going to have another chance real soon to show how irresponsible he is. I just hope he doesn't kill anybody.

Update: Seems the stupidity has made it down into the water supply around here: Man charged with shooting son. I casually read the post and didn't think much of it, until I read the single comment. WTF? With a list of charges like that, why did the guy get out on a $2,500 bond? Should be more like $2.5 million dollar bond.

On another note, good on the son for pulling through after catching a 38 to the chest.

The spring loaded cannon menace

Describing the cannon, Ferguson said, "It was a homemade device with a barrel on it. It was spring-loaded (and) appeared to be possibly to be shot off from the ground or even possibly from your shoulder."

As opposed to being fired from what? A frigate? And who the hell has the gall to have something like that with a barrel on it? Barrels are dangerous. Last I heard, spring loaded cannon produce like wicked higher muzzle velocities than the traditional volatile-propelant-violently-exploded-in-confined-chamber type cannon. Maybe we should crack down on springs.

Alright, when the cops get to your house and find your five year old waving around daddy's pistol, then you've got some issues. Pot plants and mushrooms? Aren't those plants that have grown naturally in the environment for millions of years?

The most outrageous part of this whole story is why the guy was in possession of an assault blowgun. I mean, the thing is a .40 caliber weapon. FOURTY CALIBER folks!!! And worse yet, you can buy them at flea markets and Saigon Sams without a license, or even a truth serum enema!!

And why does anyone neeeeeeed a sword? Swords are only designed for one thing: killing puppies! And ninjas. But mostly puppies. Same thing with medieval weapons. Why does anyone neeeeed to own a device created with the sole purpose of killing mass numbers of the peaceful French? Barbaric!

He may not be the shining gem of a citizen that one would hope for in a neighbor - he did violate the Lautenberg amendment after all - but this article seems to contain some journalistic overkill. For all we know, the "drug evidence" the guy was disposing of may just be plastic baggies or some other such "paraphernalia;" and the pistol his kid had may turn out to be an airsoft gun. Who knows?

When your grandpappy was a special operator

Holy smokes, that's badass!!

The extra four rounds of ammunition on is flak jacket is soooooo hardcore!

Deliberate misinformation

Here is a screen shot of a CNN page from this morning, with the highlighted link in question:


And here is the ABC News article under the link. That's bias that is about as deliberate as it can be. It can't be blamed on lack of knowledge, or that it was just missed. So it is a lie.

I can't let stuff like this go.

New Virginia gun laws going up

Via The Sentinel, the blog for the Virginia Citizens Defense League, is a list of all the new gun laws that are proposed in Virginia this year. There are good and bad bills in there. I hate that balisongs - "butterfly knives" - get demonized so badly. They are extremely useful tools that, unfortunately, politicians and soccer moms dislike because of a stigma mostly created by Hollywood.

Also of note: VCDL Lobby Day this Monday on Martin Luther King Day in Richmond. I didn't even notice that Monday was a holiday, and I haven't been checking my emails, so this one snuck up on me.

Well that's one philosophy

"The largest obstacle to solving our transportation needs is a philosophy, espoused by some, that it is always wrong to raise taxes or fees," Kaine said.

Spoken like a true Democrat.

I have another philosophy: how about keeping Virginia's infrastructure on par with economic development, instead of blowing every developer that comes into the state and wants to build a new sea of vinyl houses. That way, like in this county, instead of having the population increase by over fifty percent in twenty years while keeping the roads just as unfunded as always, you can actually re-pave old roads and build or widen new ones without having to cut lifelong resident's front yards right up to the porch just to keep enough road to allow traffic to move.

Which philosophy do you think is cheaper?

I swear, I just can't understand why politicians think that they can reap the rewards of explosive growth for years, and then bitch about not being able to raise taxes later to pay for their own mismanagement.

In the Marine Corps, we call the solution the 7 P's: Proper Prior Planning Prevents Piss Poor Performance. Let that soak in for a minute Governor.

Roads and other infrastructure should keep up with economic growth. When you have states that are growing extremely fast, you have to cut out some of the other shit from the budget to make up for it.

Like if I wanted to build an addition to my house for instance, and the estimated cost of such an endeavor is going to be $20,000, it would be stupid to continue spending money on a plastic yard gnome collection while telling my wife to get her ass to work for two more days a week to make up for the difference. It would also be smart to check to see if my electrical panel will be able to support the addition, and not just build it anyways and then notice "Awww damn! Every time I turn the light on in this place the kitchen stops working. It's going to cost a ton to fix that problem now! Honey! Call your work and tell them you need twice as many hours now! I fucked up, and you have to make up for it!"

Yeah, that's some philosophy. It doesn't surprise me at all to hear that you didn't fix the roads.

Kaine cautioned legislators that no state can maintain its economic edge with a declining infrastructure -- jammed roads that trap commuters in Washington, D.C.'s Virginia suburbs for hours each day, substandard bridges, rural roads that impede economic development and insufficient ability to evacuate the Hampton Roads region in an emergency.

Well, how did the roads get so jammed? You didn't fund them to keep up with growth, that's how. And I absolutely love the "rural roads that impede economic development." Thanks for that, you dick. So the beautiful backroads previously used by us hicks are getting in the way of your funding stream, ehh? They're all choked up with traffic from people who recently moved here from the gridlock nightmare of Maryland who are all still trying to drive fifty miles every morning and afternoon to get to DC where the money is? Than I guess I'm all selfish for bitching about what used to be a ten minute, four mile scenic drive into town to get some groceries is now a forty five minute, white-knuckle goat-rope crash fest just to get to the parking lot, to say nothing of the lines inside at the check out. Wouldn't want to spoil the economic edge, or get into the way of all those construction trucks heading toward the new CVS project right across the street from the old CVS!

I can't wait until my house is worth what I paid for it so that I can sell it and move to Wyoming. At this point, the only thing that makes my "historic" town historic is that you can go to the courthouse and see old pictures of it when it wasn't infested by the glowing lights of hundreds of thousands of cars making their daily journey to DC.

GGGGRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!

A good story with a happy ending

We all need one of these from time to time.

Range Report

I didn't end up on travel after all, but this is the first opportunity this week that I've had to get some blogging done.

Last Saturday morning I set out to test some handloads for the 308, and I had been planning this range trip all week. I have been diligently trying to copy the 175 grain Federal Gold Medal Match rounds, so I had a dozen of those loads as that is the number of FGMM brass casings that I had left after culling the damaged ones. I had made ten loads of 175 grain Sierra Match Kings on top of 45 grains of Varget, which is a popular load amongst 308 shooters, so I thought I'd give that a try. Also I had some 168 grain Hornady Match bullets pushed by 44 grains of Reloader 15 that I was interested in trying out.

So how did I do?

Well, first of all I'd like to give a big fuck you shout out to the retarded weatherman who posted winds of 2-6 mph NNW on Yahoo.com. How about those 20 - 30 mph gusts, or the 10 mph constant wind on Saturday, huh? Slip your mind? Find a new career you moron. You don't have what it takes.

The temperature that day was 19 degrees when I left the house, and it had been cold and windy all week. I picked Saturday because the Yahoo weather report said the wind was going to be mild. At the 100 yards I was shooting, it had little impact on my shots, but my gear was blowing all over the place. Since Reloader 15 can be temperature sensitive, I kept all of my rounds warm in my truck, and loaded five rounds into a magazine right before I was ready to shoot. I don't want to have rounds be good to go with no pressure signs, only to find out this summer that they are too hot when the temperature increases.

I started off by shooting the Varget loads, and I really didn't have high expectations for them. I was shooting off sandbags, which turned out to be a real problem. Ever since the Harris bi-pod fiasco this summer, I've been taking them off and stacking the Brownell's sandbags in the front, and using a sand sock in the back. What ends up happening is the sling swivel in the front of the rifle acts as a small tooth that digs into the long and skinny sandbags, making them more and more unstable with every shot until they topple over. My first five shot group of the Varget rounds were all over the place, and with the last shot the bags fell over and the muzzle hit the bench. The group measured about an inch and three quarters.

After re-stacking the bags and flattening them down to make them more stable, I again fired the Varget rounds, laying out a three quarter inch five shot group. Every shot felt solid; but what made me smile was that four of the five rounds went into a quarter inch! Unfortunately, I didn't have any more of them to test that day. Even better than that, my velocities averaged at 2,658 fps out of the 20" Krieger barrel, which is 10 fps shy of my 155 grain load, admittedly a pretty mild load to begin with. These 175 grain SMKs are obviously heavier, but they also have a higher BC, making them a better choice for down range power. ES was 16 fps, and the SD was 8! Who could ask for better than that?

Next up was the FGMM clones. There are still some pending questions about this, like why do the 175 grain SMK bullets from the factory rounds measure different than the 175 grain SMK bullets that are sold for reloading? My loads shot right at true MOA, being 1.047" at 100 yards; my two five shot groups were 1.04-something at 97 yards from the muzzle. For speed, I've clocked factory 175 gr FGMM at 2,521 fps on average from my rifle, and that was my target velocity. I came pretty close. There are many shooters who believe that Federal Cartridge Company change their FGMM load recipes to keep people from duplicating them, and that their secret to accuracy lies in the Optimal Barrel Timing theory: the theory that a fired bullet leaving the barrel at a precise moment will take advantage of the muzzle being as close to a rest in the vibration cycle as possible, resulting in more accuracy. This goes hand in hand with the Optimal Charge Weight theory, which as far as I can tell is a sound principle. In any case, my average velocity was 2,505 fps, with ES and SD at 28 and 11 fps respectively. Not bad for a first try. The cases were once fired FGMM; the primer was CCI BR2 (Federal uses some sort of "Gold Medal Match" primer in their factory loads that different from the ones sold to the public); and powder charge was 42.5 grains of Reloader 15.

Now I have a legitimate race between the Varget and FGMM clone loads. I care the most about consistent accuracy, vice speed; but if I can get that sort of consistency and accuracy from Varget, and 130+ fps to boot, why would I bother fiddling around with the Reloader 15? Well, for one, it would be cool to finally solve the puzzle of what exactly is in Federal's flagship match cartridge. It can't be fairy dust making them shoot so well. Also, some shooters - myself included - like to have a load that is not near maximum pressure and all to save on barrel life, as well as to ensure that there won't be a pressure spike if you're shooting in the sweltering heat. So I think since I came so close with my first shot at it, I'm going to bump my powder charge a couple of tenths of a grain to see if that does the trick. I'm not the only guy who's measured the powder charge in FGMM rounds, and others have reported slightly heavier charges.

The last rounds I shot were the 168 grain Hornady loads, which shot just under an inch. I don't have the exact group measurement handy at the moment, but velocity averaged a sedate 2,500 fps. It's a starting point if I want to pursue 168 grain loads. I mostly loaded them because I had a box of them sitting around, and I thought what the hell. I'm not a fan of 168s for the 308, as I think there is more of an advantage in using 175+ grains, or driving 155 grainers at high velocities; but these Hornady bullets are really nice. They seem longer than others of the same weight, and if I can get them to shoot well, than why not use them.

I have 20 more of the Varget rounds loaded up, and plan on some more shooting this weekend out to 350 yards. I want to give them another go beforehand, to see if they are the ones I should be taking. If not, I may try to OCW them this weekend instead, which is really the 100% solution for the perfect load for this gun. Time will tell. I do have a Shooters Ridge bag type rest now, which will give me the height that I need to shoot the 308 without precariously stacking a ton of sandbags in the front of the gun. I also intend to shoot my AR15 some because I want to use it to slay some coyotes and bobcats the rest of the winter. First I need to load some of my accurate 223 recipes this week so that it will actually shoot where I want it to. I've been loading zombie fodder for that gun for far too long, and those are not what I want to be using.

I'll give another report after this weekend. Stay tuned.

Out of town

This morning, and possibly for the rest of the week. I will still have some time to post in the evenings, so bear with me. I have a range report to crank out, I just need some time to take target pictures.

A massive dose of common sense

Finally, Finally - we have someone with some common frickin sense!

Read em' and weep:

OLYMPIA, Wash. - A panel assembled by Governor Chris Gregoire is recommending a constitutional amendment following the recent killings of police officers.

The amendment would give judges more discretion when setting bail for potentially dangerous offenders.

How about that! Thank you Governor Gregoire for making my day!

"Hey guys, I've got a grand idea!! Let's keep these violent shitheads in prison where they belong instead of paroling them back into the wild where they feed on good people!"

Hopefully this doesn't get screwed up or watered down. There's always that overarching threat of "good intentions," as well as unintended consequences when it comes to things like this, and I would like to see some real effort go into finding the edges of them. Also, I'm sure in Washington there are also plenty of dangerous judges that probably shouldn't be given any more power than they already have; but that's too little too late. Ultimately, I think mandatory minimum sentences are way too dangerous; and so the middle ground between letting dangerous criminals walk free or just rubber stamping out long sentences on any Tom, Dick, or Harry that crosses the bar is to give the judges the ability to sift out the folks who don't deserve the long sentence, and really putting the screws to the scumbags who do.

And to think they came to this conclusion without the help of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Ownership or the Mayors Against Interesting Guns.

Global cooling is killing our sea turtles!

Seriously though, it would be kinda cool to hang out with sea turtles all day.

Complacency. . .

. . .thy name is the Home Alarm System.

"In one event, the homeowner was at work got notification from the alarm company that alarm was going off. He didn't think anything of it and just canceled it. When he got home he saw his home had been broken into," said Friz.

So why even bother having one? Not that I really care about this guy's house per se, it's just that the police get false home alarm calls all the time making the whole home security thing suck for everyone else who actually cares about their property.

Mace: Not always effective against swordsman

A very strange but true tale of one scumbag with a sword attacking two women.

I'm assuming the sword was purchased from an unscrupulous sword dealer at a seedy sword show without a proper background check.

Spree shooter on the loose

The story is still developing, but it looks like some scumbag in St. Louis shot about four people with a "large assault rifle," of course, and is wandering around some where.

I'll post more details when I get them.

Update: FOX News live is saying the shooter is an employee and shot at least three people with an AK 47.

The shooter was on scene for at least a half an hour before the "tactical team" showed up. Looks to me like a standard cordone and wait strategy. The building is ABB Inc. which is a company that has power plants and such, and this building is for the manufacturing of electrical transformers.

The ABB corporate Code of Conduct manual says nothing about being a gun free environment, but it does say that "ABB's ground rules for employees are: work safely and protect yourself, your coworkers. . ." Let's hope some of the employees took this manual seriously and are able and willing to do just that.

Update: Foxs News has reported that three people are dead, the gunman being one of them, and eight wounded. That's about all of the details that are available right now. The gunman is believed to have killed himself. I sat on this update all day in order to gain more detail, but I'm sure we will get those over the weekend.

Message for home invading scumbags:

Don't use a gun against home owners because it will be taken away and used against you!

Sucks that the home owner got shot in the face over it, but he did manage to save his wife and kids. Good job!

John von Brunn dies in prison

The scumbag who shot up the Holocaust Museum and murdered Stephen Johns has died in prison.

Too bad his suffering in there only lasted as long as it did; but it does save the taxpayers from feeding his sorry ass over the next ten years.

Good riddance.

Some of the worlds fastest supercars

To kickstart your imagination this morning.

Check out the video at the end of the Shelby SuperCars Ultimate Aero Twin Turbo hitting 257 mph on what looks like a country road!

Pro-gun media spotlight

Two great articles from the press on firearms that are of note. One from The Washington Times:
EDITORIAL: The forgotten virtue of firearms

The other, covered by Captain of a Crew of One, is from the Richmond Times Dispatch:
A. Barton Hinkle column: Gun-Control Advocates Play Fast and Loose

These are the types of gun related articles that should get read by the masses, and not the factually empty ones that are so common these days. Way to go!

USMC recruiting video

****NSFW - Language****

Found at the Recruiting Advertisement thread at MilitaryPhotos.net.

I detect a pattern

"There has never been a more open process for any legislation,"

"The system worked."

"The reforms I'm proposing would not apply to those who are here illegally."

"I did not have sexual relations with that woman. ."

"I am not a crook."

There seems to be a trend in this country from those who we put in office. I might be going out on a limb here, but I say that they can't be trusted.

You know, with every passing day I'm hoping more and more that some volcano in the middle of the ocean will birth me a new continent so that I can have a place to go to be free.

Everything is cleaner with TIDE!!

Since the attempted attack, the intelligence community has scrubbed the entire Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment (TIDE) database of more than 500,000 suspects with the new criteria, adding additional individuals to the U.S. watch lists and no-fly lists as a result. Several visas have also been revoked.

Sweet! That's the way I always get stuff done: by lowering my standards!

"We have a new standard now, which will allow us to capture more people."

As far as I know, nothing in history has ever revealed this timeless tactic to be flawed. It's win win!

As an added bonus, this is the same list that our political creatures would like to use to bar people from buying or owning firearms. This is an exclusive list here folks; all you have to do to get on it is to be one of the lucky 500,000+ people who share the same name as someone else who is on the list! Nothing to it!

So how do you know when you've earned your shot at a surprise trip to a beautiful detention facility (where the bars stay open closed all night) by making it onto that list? Well, when you know, you know. . . . .if you catch my drift. If you're fortunate enough to have a name like Orson Ben Ladden then you have an outstanding chance at landing a years long weekend at a secret resort in some no name third world country where the special treatment never ends!

Don't wait! Go rack up those frequent flyer miles today!

Hey, knock it off over there!!!

Uuum, a little bit too close to home there, sport. Keep the noise down!

Comments and other such things

Hi folks! I just wanted to say I appreciate everyone who comes here for a read, and I thank you for your comments!

No, I'm not going anywhere; it's just that I stumbled upon my spam folder in my email, and for some reason all of my comments have been going there. I thought I had that sorted out.

So, this whole time I haven't been getting my notices that someone had dropped by and left me a message. I thought that it was because of the holidays and all, or that I had been slacking so that nobody was reading.

I have a ton of comments to go through, to say nothing of the Movie Guns comments. I will get to it, but I am in a state of shell shock right now. Sorry about that.

As for Movie Guns, now that it is the new year I am on the hunt for a cheap and reliable computer to hook to my newly repaired Big Ass Monitor. Right now I have to resort to posting on my wife's little laptop, or bringing my work laptop home from time to time. Once I get a new computer, it's game on.

I'm looking forward to it, and I am looking forward to reading all of the stuff y'all have sent me in the past couple months.

Puff the magic adder

I haven't done a post on the assault snake menace for awhile.

Should there be a mandatory ten year sentence for possessing assault style snakes?

I mean, why would anyone neeeeeed a snake that deadly? And how much venom does it hold?

.375 H&H Space Pen

Coooooool.

I want one! Too bad they're sold out.

(Via Ace)

Not a human caused disaster

There's cellphone video footage of the Las Vegas courthouse shooting where you can hear the shots fired. It sounds like a hell of a shootout went down.

For what it's worth these days, the press is reporting that one officer was killed and another wounded, and that seven US Marshals engaged the scumbag before killing him.

The weapon used is mercifully unknown at this time.*

This seems to be the 'Duh' statement in all of this:

The shootings have immediately raised questions about security at public buildings in Las Vegas.

And elsewhere, as time and time again it has been proven that security ain't so secure.

*I see now that CNN is saying that the scumbag used a shotgun.

NBA players have their say about carrying guns

There is some good and bad in this NBC Washington article.

Most of the players interviewed know that they have the right to protect themselves and their families, and that is why they ignore the NBA commissioner's "pleas" to not own or carry firearms.

"We're grown men. We protect our families. We protect our homes," said Knicks guard Larry Hughes, who isn't licensed to own a gun. "Whatever the case may be, whoever is bearing arms, I hope everything is done, you know, legally, but you have that right."

This sentiment seems to be the norm amongst the players.

Well, except this one:

Jackson said he stopped carrying a gun after the trouble it caused.

****

"I have the sense that this is an environment that's come out of a lot of the kids' past," Jackson said. "Not only that, they've had situations that have happened in their own personal lives that makes them feel that it warrants it, but my message is it attracts violence. There's no doubt about it, and the violence that happens around guns is death usually."

"The trouble it caused?" "There's no doubt. . . [it attracts violence]?" Stephen Jackson would know about how a gun could take over your mind and make you do stupid things like attract violence: he's the guy who fired his gun in the air five times in "self defense" at a nightclub.

Pardon me for disregarding all of the advice that comes out of his mouth.

Some more fun stuff here from Knicks president Donnie Walsh:

"You don't need them, and if you have them, you have a better chance of something happening then if you don't have them."

Really? Do you care to back this up with some fact? I doubt that you can considering your team hails from the great New York City where guns are practically illegal to own and prevented from being carried by all but criminals.

Thinking about this for a moment, I'm hard pressed to name more than three people that I personally know who do not carry a gun, and I've never known anyone who has had something happen to them over carrying one. That's personal experience based on fact, but not really a qualifier for this post. No doubt Walsh has experienced, or know someone who has, violence at the end of a gun; but in NYC, what can you expect? There is no legitimate gun ownership there, so I gather that his voice carries little weight.

T.J. Ford seems to be the best voice of reason in this article; and of course he would be the guy raised in Texas and playing for the Indiana Pacers, so he at least is associated with two states known for a solid gun culture:

But Ford says, "You can't tell somebody how to protect their family."

That's it. Simple, ain't it? All the rules and regulations in the world will not stop a reasonable man, or woman, from protecting their family.

The NBA needs to get with the program and stop barring players from exercising their rights. If they act like idiots, then let them face the penalty for it.

*Just found this. Arenas has released his statement about the guns in the Verizon Center, as well as his defense on what happened. A snippet:

As I have said before, I had kept the four unloaded handguns in my house in Virginia, but then moved them over to my locker at the Verizon Center to keep them away from my young kids. I brought them without any ammunition into the District of Columbia, mistakenly believing that the recent change in the DC gun laws allowed a person to store unloaded guns in the District.

On Monday, December 21st, I took the unloaded guns out in a misguided effort to play a joke on a teammate. Contrary to some press accounts, I never threatened or assaulted anyone with the guns and never pointed them at anyone.

It would seem that he's not quite the idiot that I, or anyone else, may have thought. Bringing them out for some sort of joke or intimidation factor wasn't smart, but if he didn't point them at anyone it wasn't reckless either. Perhaps this is another example of the press blowing things out of proportion. Also, this might be an example of how DC's convoluted gun laws have negatively impacted someone's life.

Rubber rifle, you're the one. .. .

. . .you make gun buybacks lots of fun!!!

The VCDL blog The Sentinel is quick to point out that the Assault Thingies turned in during a LA gun buyback program were as fake as fake can be. Good eye!

Also pointed out in comments at the LA Times article is that since the guns are made of rubber and scrap metal, they can't actually be "cleared" because they don't fire cartridges and they don't have removable magazines! What were those deputies thinking?

Nothing like getting $5,800 for some junk!

This story is cross posted at Captain of a Crew of One. Stop by and check it out!

Guns of the NBA

No doubt you've heard about the two Washington Wizards players pulling guns on each other, and if you haven't, then read up here.

To level things out, lets get to the bottom of the details of what's going on here.

Some facts:

1. The NBA Commissioner David Stern doesn't like guns, and the NBA forbids possession of them in any facility where the players are.
2. The former owner, Abe Pollin, said the word "bullet" reminded him of "guns and violence," and this idea was somehow reinforced when Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated, so he changed the teams name from the Bullets to the Wizards.
3. One of the players who pulled a gun in the locker room, Gilbert Arenas, kept his firearms unloaded, locked in a box, because he had kids at home and wanted to keep his home safe.
4. It is illegal to keep firearms of any kind outside of your private residence in DC.

Now, despite Arenas effort to keep his guns separate from his kids, he is a negligent moron if he really did point a gun at his teamate for any reason except to prevent a violent criminal act. This is not the case; and there seems to be little dispute that the two players pointed guns, so they are both idiots who should be treated as such by the legal system before they are punished by NBA by-laws.

If the NBA is going to continue on with creating and enforcing fascist laws that prevent the thousands of non-negligent players from using firearms to protect themselves, than they need to come up with a way for their players to safely store their guns instead of leaving them with no recourse other than to break said laws and jeopardize their careers. And regardless of David Stern's uneducated opinion, it is not "fact" that guns make people less safe. He announces this opinion without any supporting evidence, which is what is expected from such moral cowards who would prevent players from exercising their basic human rights using fiat laws in their contract. There is substantial Fact showing that gun ownership actually makes people more safe.

Lastly, the family of Abe Pollin seemed to be on the right track with their statement about the two players pulling guns, but then they run right off the rails by stating that "the fact that guns were brought into the Verizon Center is dangerous and disappointing and showed extremely poor judgement," and "Guns have absolutely no place in a workplace environment and we will take further steps to ensure this never happens again." Wow. It would seem that imposing contractual by-laws, not to mention DC code, had no impact whatsoever of preventing two jackasses from bringing firearms into a league arena and pointing them at one another. So I take it they're going to make things illegaller this time. Let's try again!

Down with the sickness

Sorry about the lack of posting lately. One by one, my entire household acquired a nasty flu, and we've been stuck in this house for over a week.

Normally, my awesome immune system would keep me safe and sound, but both of my kids got it and, if you've ever seen how stomach illnesses effect kids, you know how much vomit, poop, and snot can be generated in a very short amount of time. I was bound to fall to it eventually.

Things are looking up though. I may have to call into work sick tomorrow, but probably not. I'll post more when I'm better.