Ahhh, gun bigots make it so easy

Ralph Fascitelli of Washington Ceasefire, an advocacy group that seeks to reduce gun violence, said allowing guns in coffeehouses robs residents of "societal sanctuaries."

"People go to Starbucks for an escape, just so they can get peace," Fascitelli said. "But people walk in with open-carry guns and it destroys the tranquility."

Wow. Mr. Fascitelli makes an interesting case. Where have we heard this before? Oh yeah, I'm definitely going there:

Samuel Bowers of White Knights, an advocacy group that seeks to suppress Blacks, said allowing Negros in coffeehouses robs residents of "societal sanctuaries."

"People go to Starbucks for an escape, just so they can get peace," Bowers said. "But Negros walk in and it destroys the tranquility."

Jerry Falwell of Thomas Road Baptist, an advocacy group that seeks to reduce gays, said allowing queers in coffeehouses robs residents of "societal sanctuaries."


"People go to Starbucks for an escape, just so they can get peace," Walt Kowalski said. "But zipper heads walk in and it destroys the tranquility."

Bigotry comes in all forms. Clowns like Peter Hamm and Ralph Fascitelli can't seem to find that point when they spew this sort of discriminating noise.

Like it or not, there were no "gunshots" from those carrying guns at Starbucks. That's because the gun control crowd is barking up the wrong tree by pushing to take away protected rights from peaceable human beings. And interestingly enough, this article cites the shooting of four Washington police officers in a coffee shop by a psychopathic scumbag as reason for gun control advocate motivation, as in why the Brady Campaign wants Starbucks to be a "gun free zone."

Seriously.

These people honestly confuse everyday citizens who carry a firearm to preserve their life, and the life of their family or community, with a lone crazy gunman with a long and violent criminal past that several states failed to put away behind bars where he belonged. I can't see how making the place gun free would have made the slightest difference. A guy who wants to engage four uniformed officers in some gunplay is not the kind of guy who would turn at the sight of a "gun free zone" sign.

Really though, I love to see these quotes from the gun control crowd because it means that they are not people of reason with a valid argument to contest; there is no need to even converse with them at all. They are bigots. They try to deny basic human rights - in this case protected by local, state, and federal law - from decent human beings because they do not agree with them. That strengthens our points because they have none.

Render unto Caesar

DC is still ticketing cars despite the meters being buried under snow.

Looking at it through the Common Law angle, the city is entitled to charge for parking whether the snow is there or not, although it is a dick thing to do. On the other hand, those who have shoveled their asses off because the city can't seem to clear the streets definitely have a claim to get that ticket money refunded.

Overall, those who live and thrive in the city ultimately agreed to this mess. It's Commerce.

Why we need strong gun laws

Because it's the only shot in the dark at stopping a violent murderer when Maryland accidentally releases him into the wild.

Oooops.

Of course I'm kidding about the gun law part, but Maryland is chock full of elitist politicos who have made it very hard to protect yourself from dangerous criminals in the belief that these laws will make it difficult for the dangerous criminal to get access to a weapon. It's a foolish belief.

Understandably accidents happen, but the millions of people in the area around the prison are now more vulnerable to this scumbag by being disarmed.

Update: Scumbag in question memorized another scumbags identification number. Pretty high tech prison system going on there.

Equipment Change Proposal

Today I decided to finally anchor my little gun safe to the floor. About six months ago I bought some Red Head Hex Sleeve Anchors to do this task, and I'm now in a huge predicament. So far only one of the pins has not completely failed:



Whomever designed these ridiculous pieces of shit deserves to spend a day in a big ass washing machine filled with Brillo pads and roofing nails. Morons.

So in my experience, these things have a 75% failure rate. What if hand grenades had a 75% failure rate? Marines would be pretty pissed off, no? How about your DVD player? How often does it fail? That's right, not very often. That's because they are generally engineered to do what they're supposed to do.

The knife industry is a perfect example of how good engineers build shit that is so over-engineered, it will probably not fail even if you use it like you're not supposed to over and over again. In the case of these Red Head pins, they are engineered by incompetent people to not even do exactly what the fuck they're designed to do one single time. Now I have one pin that's stripped because it couldn't stand the abusive tapping with a 16 oz. hammer that drives it into the concrete, and two pins that won't tighten because the design sucks and the pins spin in the expansion sleeve.

AAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!!!

No excuses, just fix it!!!

Next up, we have the Clorox wipes. The wipes themselves are amazing, and are quite handy around the house. The problem is that when you get down to the last 25% of the wipes in the jar, they knot up into a big ass clot that comes flying out in a spectacular mess. Getting a face full of bleach really pisses me off.

Just to put things into perspective, engineers can build an internal combustion engine, which is an amazing marvel of human accomplishment, but can't seem to get some wet paper to feed from a plastic tube. Have you ever seen a running engine without a valve cover? It's simply astonishing how everything is so precisely timed that an explosion can be harnessed, making it possible to power a two ton car up a hill or a fighter plane into the air. Now take a close look at this mess:



Not very astonishing, is it?

Hey clorox, how about fixing this mess. . .

Motivated Marines and Soldiers in Afghanistan

My wife grows tired of me asking if I can re-enlist into the Marines and go to Afghanistan. It's picture threads like this that make the hair on the back of my neck stand up, and want to re-enlist.

Get some!!

Rapists beware

Women these days are likely to be more than you bargained for.

Violent scumbag self destructs

Not much to complain about now.

Mind your scumbags, SC. Why this guy was out and about, free to roam around society to find a weapon and attempt to take another life, is my question.

It's a shame that since the courts failed to stop this threat, the scumbag had to do it for them.

DC carry movement

The locals are thrilled!

Same with park carry which is legal today.

“Residents of each of those jurisdictions have the responsibility -- have the duty -- to know and to educate themselves as to what those laws are,” Line added.

Indeed, they do. Know what you're doing out there and be the good example.

Hit those polls while you're there!

Playing with gunpowder is not for kids

Hopefully this kid goes home with all his parts.

I have to say, what kind of moron helps his nine year old fill an inert grenade with gunpowder, set a wick in it, and then just leave it in a flower pot for anyone to get ahold of?

That is negligence, pure and simple.

Parents that stupid should be tied up in the center of town for everyone to kick while on their way to get groceries.

A crack team of idiots discover what Americans already knew

Unbelievable!

CNN has discovered that Americans are. . . . get this folks. . . . pissed off at their government! Wow. I am truly shocked.

This whole time I thought that everyone was just tickled pink with the state of the union, and now an elite team of bumbling pollsters working for one of the most biased news organizations in the world has just ruined my world view.

You learn something new every day.

Rough morning?

It could be worse.

I'm pretty thankful I got to wake up in my own house this morning, thanks to hard-charging warriors who are out doing violence so that I don't have to.

Quality Control problems at Sierra Bullets?

I dunno, but somethings weird.

So there I was, in the basement with baby CTone while everyone else slept. I have several hundred cases that were prepped and primed over a week ago, and I thought it would be a dandy time to fill them with the sweet lemony goodness of Hodgdon Varget and top them off with a 175 grain Sierra Match King.

My seating die is already set up for this exact load, as I had already been making these for awhile for testing in my gun. I had bought a bunch of new Winchester cases, and to make sure I had enough bullets, I picked up another box of the 175s. Not seeing the already open box of SMKs in the mess of a cabinet where I keep my bullets, I opened the new box and started cranking away. I would find that box soon enough and use them up.

That's when I noticed that something wasn't right.

I measure each loaded round to the ogive with a comparator, as bullet tips vary so much that you won't get a precision seating depth, and the measurement that I normally measure to - 2.219" - didn't match what came out of the die - 2.229". So I take off the comparator and measure the over all length. . . .2.810" - that's the right length. What gives?

I loaded several more, and got the same thing. I thought that was weird, so I measured the bullet itself to the ogive, as well as the over all length. Then I found the opened box of the same 175 SMKs, manufacture number 2275, and measured those. . . . .they were different. Then I remembered that I've encountered this problem before and didn't think too much of it, and I still had two loaded rounds that I had made with pulled bullets from factory Federal Gold Medal Match. I pulled one of those rounds and measured the bullet. . . .different from the other two!

So I have three samples of the exact same bullet from the exact same manufacturer, and all three have different measurements.

• The 175 grain SMK bullet pulled from the Federal GMM is 1.234" overall, and .661" to the ogive.
• Five 175 grain SMK bullets, #2275, pulled at random from old box measured 1.241" overall, and .645 to the ogive.
• Five 175 grain SMK bullets, #2275, pulled at random from new box measured 1.235" overall, and .657" to the ogive.

Anyone ever heard of this?

I can't possibly see how people win matches with them if they are that far off from one box to the next.

Home sweet home

We got home from the hospital yesterday afternoon, and have been coping with things as best we can. Having three kids under three is harder than I thought.

My older kids have met the new family member, and they are more or less coping with that. Times are tough. Nobody in my house is getting any sleep.

I am no stranger to sleep deprivation; it's an old friend of mine, and an integral part of being a Marine. With that said, a newborn is certainly capable of taking you to the ragged edge. Pacing around in the hospital with him, I finally got all wobbly, and had to take the little guy to the nursery because I didn't want to fall with him in my arms. If you believe what you see on TV, you would be under the impression that hospitals are places of rest. That's a silly notion. The hospital staff were all wonderful people, and I thank them for their devotion, but sleep enablers they are not.

I have no idea what is going on in the world at this moment in time, so I apologize for not posting on issues. I am home for awhile, so sooner or later I'm gonna have some good blogging time. The bright side of all the waking up every hour or so is that I am finally getting around to all those outdoor shows that I have TVoed. I was watching some American Guardian at 3 o'clock this morning with baby CTone. Tonight will be some Shooting Gallery with Michael Bane. Good times!

I'll be back in the saddle soon.

Give us this day our yearly CTone

Today we have another CTone in our family, born at 1414 this afternoon. He is 7lbs 13oz, which is light considering our other kids.

If you have been reading this blog awhile, you would note that we have a kid a year, which has its challenges.

I'm blogging from my phone right now as there is no internet in this section, and blogging will continue to be light for a day or two.

Big day

Light blogging ahead. I've got some stuff going down today that needs my attention, and I'll be posting again just as soon as I can.

Unadulterated brilliance from health officials

The coyotes chased them from an area near a playground at Crowley Park. The big question Richardson health officials are asking: Why did the coyotes pursue the boys?

Let's see if I can help the Richardson health officials solve this difficult puzzle.

Two coyotes, being the wild animals that they are, are often prone to wild behavior. Coyotes, like all animals, get hungry. Often. Occam's Razor suggests that two coyotes running around on the fringes of "urban sprawl," chasing after two young boys and biting at their legs means. . . . hell . . . . I just don't know.

What could it possible be?

. . . . . . . .

I swear, it's like watching Blue's Clues, only in real life.

"The paw print! It's on the freakin' fish bowl, ya moron. . . .look, it's right there!!!!"

I hope the good folks of Richardson don't pay too much for this crack team of health officials.

Virginia getting more safe with each passing day

By the ease at which stupid gun laws are torn down, and more gun rights protections are put in their place.

Wait? The "Iron Pipeline" runs North?

That's weird. Last I heard, that sucker was flowing like a river of deadly goodness to the South, where drug fueled crazies were using those easily purchased M16s and RPGs to take out the Mexican po-po.

Apparently, the gun control crowd was either wrong about the pipeline's direction, are stealing some other gun bigot's brilliantly clever term, or maybe they are just not creative enough to come up with a term of their own.

And how does a river flow from Georgia to New York anyways? That's like, against gravity and stuff. Come to think about it, iron doesn't really make a good river.

Silly people.

Notice that the prior restraint imposed on regular peaceable folk - which are legion in Georgia from my personal experience - in the form of instant background checks, wherein the gun shop owner calls the FBI about the buyer, is not really all that effective at stopping the bad guys. These laws were supposed to be the ticket for stopping the scumbags once and for all, and we just have to put up with the inconvenience because stopping scumbags saves babies. Period.

I'm not convinced.

This one particular store sold over 4,000 guns in three years, and had 83 sales denied. Not 83 felons convicted, or even caught for that matter, but sales denied, for whatever reason. I'm curious as to how many of those denials were overturned - probably most - and how many legitimate criminals were stopped from buying the gun because the ATF arrested them. My guess is somewhere around zero.

So why are we being inconvenienced again? Seems to me that the most logical way to stop this massive pipeline of molten hot iron from traveling in two directions simultaneously is to annihilate Interstate 95.

That put a smile on your face, didn't it?!?!

Gun law stuff in Virginia

One gun a month is going the way of the dodo. It's about time.

I give writers hell on this blog, but I want to give credit where it's due by noting that writer Jack Heinbaugh did well with this piece: specifically that he quoted Philip Van Cleave as saying that no other constitutional are limited like this, and then afterwords quoted former Virginia governor Douglas Wilder, a known douchebag, as whining about how many guns does someone need.

Well done, Mr. Heinbaugh. Thank you.

And shame on you, Mr. Wilder. I need as many guns as I strike a notion to buy; and I what I don't need is some elitist scumbag telling me what I can and cannot do.

Also, ClintK at The Sentinel has a run down on other Virginia gun laws being voted on today.

Securing the blessings of energy

I'm thumbing through my copy of the constitution, and I can't find anything about giving the federal government permission to use my extorted money to buy old refrigerators.

It's laughable that those morons in congress still can't figure out why Americans are so pissed.

Two hour delay

Hey, whomever calls the shots at Quantico - a two hour delay doesn't mean that you should make that call two hours late. Thanks for that, jackass.

You know all that slick white beaded stuff covering the roadway this morning? That stuff would be why the local morons were colliding with each other in automobiles this morning. Pity that many of them no doubt didn't get the word about the helpful delay because you were sitting on the can.

Equipment Change Proposal

Taking into consideration that my career path does not allow me to save the world via smart engineering for the moment, I figured I would throw some ideas out there for y'all to pick over.

I don't want credit - just fix it!

Wireless internet routers.

Is it possible - you electrical engineers, I'm asking you - to make one that doesn't have to be manually reset twice a day just to maintain connectivity? I mean, do NASA guys have to send up an astronaut several times a week to push the reset button on a spy satellite with a stylus so we can keep eyes on Russia?

Didn't think so. Fix it.

Toilet seats. Yeah, I'm gonna go there.

How stupid do you have to be to screw up a toilet seat? Don't answer that, just know that you do. You gleefully advertise your $400 product being able to flush an entire wastebasket of golf balls with one delicate push of the brushed aluminum handle, and then put a pathetic plastic seat in the box? I know you guys think you're clever when you make the seat so that when it's lifted, it has to be like a millimeter past center to stay upright, but did it ever dawn on you that the little imperceptible swaying movements that guys make when they're pissing at 3 o'clock in the morning are enough to disrupt the seat's center line and make the damn thing fall down? It'd be nice to not have the seat cutting through my stream before banging down and waking up the wife. Also, perhaps the ladies would be thankful that they can actually put the fluffy carpet thingies back on.

Just a thought.

Please, for humanity's sake, the next time you're building something and think you're so smart, give a looksee at the little things so you don't screw them up.

You spin me right round

Wow. Why the press is in some sort of spin mode on the UA shooting is the question of the day.

There is the typical stuff and fluff that we get with every spree killer, like that so-and-so was lonely, depressed, had just lost a whole litter of puppies to famine. There is the also the vain attempt at directing blame at gun laws, like here where AP writer Desiree Hunter notes that Bishop didn't have a permit to spree shoot at a staff meeting. At least that's how I read it. Do you have to have a permit to own a firearm in Alabama? Do you think that if you did, an educated woman like Bishop would be paused at all in finding a gun? What does it matter?

It doesn't. It's spin. There has to be spin, has to be, because Massachusetts dropped the ball at putting a violent sociopath behind bars, and we can't let government failure singe the brain cells of the public.

"C'mon guys, there has to be another direction, any direction, that we can take this thing! Dungeons and Dragons? Perfect! Have it on my desk in an hour!"

We find out in a snippet all the way at the bottom of this piece that Amy Bishop was an Obama loving loon. What does that have to do with anything?

Nothing really. It's just that the press skews the facts about every violent lunatic, to the point where the public now believes that a murderous neo-nazi really is right wing, instead of someone aligned with the national socialist movement. It's right wing all the time, baby. Always will be.

Unless it's not, then it will be something else - like Grand Theft Auto, Slayer, D&D, the NRA.

However, I'll tell you where this shooting has made an impact: Perception.

This Sunday, when you see me OCing my big ol' honkin' Kimber in line at Starbucks after getting out of my mud soaked 4 wheel drive, you can stow that negative attitude, sport. Instead, save your suspicion for the frumpy looking woman sipping at her latte who pulled up in a Prius with a 'I Want To Have Obama's Babies' bumper sticker on the back. Is that a sawed off under that hemp coat, or are you just happy to see me?

Update: You don't need a permit to own a firearm in Alabama, as noted over at Hell in a Handbasket. And I agree with James' logic that the media is just that clueless about firearm ownership, that they have to add that 'permit' qualifier to the story because it involves guns.

A must read for today

With the constant bombardment of pompous stupidity that comes from today's White House, it's nice to reflect on how bad-ass some of our former presidents were.

You can pretty much guess at some of them.

I've always thought it pretty tough that Theodore Roosevelt finished a speech once with a bleeding hole in his chest from an assassins bullet. Conversing with the people was just too damn important to stop while some sissy doctor treats his wound.

Cool stuff.

Keep your scumbags to yourselves

I haven't opined about the freaky chic who killed three people at the University of Alabama because there is information still coming in.

As it turns out, she shot her brother to death with a shotgun some time ago, and she was also a suspect in an attempted bombing. There are lots of pundits hemming and hawing about all of this, but I want to put things into reverse order to see what I can see.

So we start with the shooting at the University of Alabama. As the press writes it, she is the accused - as in, she has not been convicted yet; and in our justice system, this makes sense as we err on the side of Liberty instead of on the side of guilt. But everyone can see what's at the end of the trial. She is presumed innocent, but she was caught in the act of mass murder, and there is no doubt that the gun was being wielded by her. It was Amy Bishop. The rest is just a process of showing the evidence, because that's what we do.

So this woman is a known violent sociopath. She murdered three people and tried to murder several more. This type of person is remarkably and fortunately rare in the world. You bump shoulders with thousands of people every day, and perhaps one of them is a sociopath, who may or may not be of the type who can pick up a firearm and take lives indiscriminately. Amy Bishop is that type.

So we have an attempted bombing of a Harvard professor. Amy Bishop and her husband were suspects, but were ultimately not charged. The MO was basically the same as with the UA shooting. Of however many people suspected of mailing the bomb to the professor, how many of them were of the type of person mentally capable of committing a bombing murder? Think about that. She definitely has the smarts, and we know that she definitely is capable, and we know that the motive is starkly comparable to the recent shooting. I would say that the ATF had the right person, but not enough evidence. No one was ever convicted of that attempted bombing, so it's not like they found the real violent scumbag.

Third, we have the shooting of her brother which she was also definitely involved in. After an argument with him, she fired a shotgun "at least three times," killing him with a shot to the chest. She then ran out of the house and attempted to carjack a passing motorist at gunpoint. She is a known violent sociopath that murdered three people with a firearm.

I'm not going into the "missing files" stuff. Conspiracy theories should not lose merit simply because they are conspiracy theories, but for the point in this post it is moot. My point was to draw attention to what we know -- that Amy Bishop is known to be capable of horrific and violent acts -- and plug that into past events that she has been a part of.

I also wanted to assert that states that let violent sociopaths walk free endanger the lives of us all. It was local law enforcement that let her slide for shooting her brother, but it is also the responsibility of the state to ensure that justice is served.

Mayors and governors often whine about guns from other states causing crime in their backyard, but they need to look to their own to solve violence problems. Scumbags from their neighborhoods wandering around mine are way more dangerous than any gun they buy in another state.

Keep your scumbags to yourselves.

You have to have a degree to be this stupid

%&**#$%^@!!!!!! Engineer hating profanity laced rant on!!!

Let me tell you a story about how I ran my cell phone over with my truck today.

These days, I am married to my cell phone; not because I can't put the thing down -- indeed, I would have gladly punted this thing if I didn't need it -- but because of how my family situation is right now. I'm going to be vague on that point for now, but know that I have to have a constant line of communication with my family. It is an absolute must.

My now dead phone is a BlackBerry Bold. It does so-so as a phone, and ok as a PDA, and horrible for internet; so for all intents and purposes, it's a piece of shit in my book. I've had cell phone troubles for awhile now, so that's no surprise.

BlackBerries come with a shitty holster that breaks with the slightest touch. It barely has enough oomph to stay clipped to your belt -- I've spent plenty of time retracing my steps in rained out parking lots with a flashlight looking for my stupid BlackBerry that fell off in the dark -- but beyond that, some dipshit engineer connected that weak-ass clip to the holster part with the flimsiest little nubbins of plastic so that when you sit down, the daggone holster snaps right the fuck off and falls to the ground. This is true of other cell phone holsters for other phones, like the shitty HTC Fuze that I had. I have about half a dozen of these broken holsters, and I've thrown many more away in countless airports from all the times I've broken them while getting into narrow plane seats. And before you say it, I have a narrow ass, so it's not like the problem is on my end.

Now, you would think that with the popularity of cell phones in general, and BlackBerries specifically, that design teams for cell phone holsters would say during team meetings: "You know, this design really sucks. We can do better than this, and we should, because we're engineers, and making stuff better and stronger is what engineers fucking do!"

But that's not at all what happens in today's world. Instead, at these team meetings what is said is: "You know, this design really sucks. We probably should do better than this, and we could, but fuck it, making stuff better and stronger is for someone else to fucking do!"

So, knowing full well that shitty holsters are as prolific as cell phones, I took to ordering a holster for my new BlackBerry from a company I thought had a different mentality: Maxpedition. Because when you work in an office environment, you have to have Hard Use Gear Everyday. It just makes sense.

I have owned Maxpedition stuff in the past and have favorable things to say about their quality, but their Clip-on PDA Holster is a steaming turd, and is the terminal piece of my engineering fail that directly led to the death of my shitty BlackBerry.

It seems that during the design phase of this particular piece of kit, one of the engineering minions went to the engineering overlord and said:

Jimbob - "Hey Earl. I just got done building an absolute bomb proof PDA pouch for the SNF, and I'm stuck on the Ballistic Belt Integration Device part. I need your input where. . . "

Earl - "What's the SNF?"

Jimbob - "The Stealth Ninja Force; the new agency Obama created to hunt down Islamic cannibal zombies that try to blow up buildings and planes and such, and read them their Miranda rights with extreme prejudice."

Earl - "Oh yeah. Man, do those guys have a huge budget! Well, I see what your talking about with that Integrator thingy. Those SNF guys, as well as regular office dwelling Americans, need the strongest possible clip for the strongest PDA pouch on the planet.

It looks like you've done a hell of a job already with the 1000-Denier water and abrasion resistant light-weight ballistic nylon fabric; the Teflon® fabric protector for grime resistance and easy maintenance; the UTX-Duraflex nylon buckles for low sound closures; the Triple polyurethane coating for water resistance; the High tensile strength nylon webbing; the High tensile strength composite nylon thread, stronger than ordinary industry standard nylon thread; and the Stress points double stitched, Bartacked or "Box-and-X" stitched for added strength. Way to go! The last thing we would want to do at this point is to put some ridiculous clip. . .er. . .Ballistic Belt Integration Device on it and make it a piece of shit. Therefor, I say we loosely sew three thin pieces of nylon on the back, and hang a $.02 piece of stamped sheet metal all half-assed on it.

Jimbob - "Earl, your such a genius! What's your secret to being so smart?"

Earl - "A good breakfast, my lad! First thing in the morning I pour myself a heaping bowl of whole grain dumb ass, and then wash it down with a tall glass of pulp free stupid."

I'd like to kick the ass of the guy who designed this trash. When I walked into work this morning, I felt the emptiness on my belt where my lifeline to my wife should have been. The clip was there, but no pouch, and no phone. Jumping back in my truck to retrace my steps led me to the driveway of a family members house, where my phone lay smitten in the snow. Apparently it only takes a bump to dislodge the holster from its $.02 stamped sheet metal "Heat treated heavy duty spring steel clip, jet black power coat" belt clip. The guy or gal who designed it has probably already left this world because they clearly do not have the mental capacity to cross the street.

Thanks for your help, Maxpedition, but I think I'll pass on your products from now on.

Now, I'm sure that there are some sharp engineers out there. As a matter of fact, I know it. I work with some of the finest engineers the world has ever seen. Where I work is kinda like in Better Off Ted, but with everyone wearing 5:11s and talking about guns. Cool place. Also, if you didn't catch the headlines this week, the US Missile Defense Agency shot down two ballistic missiles with a Laser mounted on a 747.

Smart engineers built that Laser, the missiles, and the plane; but some engineers are apparently too stupid to make a cell phone holster rugged enough to withstand an RPG. A hand grenade rampage. A machine gun assault. Getting out of the truck with two toddlers. Awesome guys.

And it isn't just the stupid cell phone holsters, or the shitty cell phones that go into them. No, engineers have really dropped the ball lately, like with my Triple Aught Design Stealth Hoodie Reloaded (thanks for ignoring my email on this, too); my Burris XTreme Tactical scope rings; my Gateway Computer. . . twice; my big ass Gateway monitor; my wife's laptop; my Samsung TV that makes a screeching noise and barely turns on; my Canon Elph camera that wouldn't focus right out of the box, and is waiting for me at Best Buy after its second repair; my Jard AR15 trigger that I noticed the other day has a chip missing from the sear (a post for later); that shitty piece of metal shit called a shelf that failed, sending my brass hither and yon; and the list goes on and on. I don't have the time to post them all here.

Again, there are some fine engineers out there; but it does seem that lately universities across the country are stamping them out of nothing and sending them out into the world to wreak havoc. Either that or they're taking a big syringe and injecting them in the forehead with a massive dose of Botard before they let them graduate.

What gives?

One day when I have time, I'm going to go back to school, get my engineering degree and fix the mess some of y'all have made of this world. It's gonna be a big job, but somebody has to design stuff that doesn't fall apart like a two dollar watch the very moment someone lays a hand on it.

That doesn't include un-fucking the Windows operating system. Someone else is going to have to do that. Or perhaps just leave the thing be and get some marketing gurus to help take the market back from the Microsoft scum.

That alone would quench a great deal of my bitterness.

GRRRRRRRRRrrrrrrrrrr!!!

Update: Several engineers have chimed in, and so far none of them are throwing barbs at me. Maybe I'm not crazy. Commenter Geodkyt has the money quote with this:

"I think that a prerequisite for entry into an engineering program should be two years in a Real World job, where shit that breaks get people killed."

Yes indeedee. That's what I'm talking about. Too much these days though, we have people who lack this experience going into places like OSHA, who sit around pondering day and night on how to wrap everything in bubblewrap so that there is no possible chance of getting hurt. I would rather have reliable equipment prone to surviving in austere environments instead of shitty equipment that won't put your eye out when it lets go at 15,000' at night while strapped to the back of some CCT operator.

Virginia gun bills

Many pro gun bills were passed out of the senate this week, with one of them being a bill that makes it so someone who has not begged the state for a CCW card can put a loaded firearm in a locked glovebox of their vehicle or boat.

Of course some lawyers (it's always the lawyers) blee-ee-eet blee-ee-ee-eet that "oh no, now criminals will keep a weapon in their car!"

By an 8-7 split lawmakers said okay to that measure despite concerns from staff attorneys, who said the bill would be welcome news for criminals.

"If they found out that they could carry their guns in a locked glove compartment, I promise you they will do that," said Senate Staff Attorney Steve Benjamin.

Be careful out their my fellow Virginians. Once this is signed into law, the criminals are going to finally come out of the woodwork and keep their guns in their car - but legally this time!

It's important to know that criminals strive to follow the law.

So if a criminal is not breaking the law, then there's no impact whatsoever. There is no reason for them to get pulled over, and having the gun locked in a glovebox is a better alternative then having it in their waistband. Not that they care about abiding by the law anyways. And if they're committing some sort of crime, and they get stopped by the police, well, then it doesn't really matter if the gun is legally locked up, they are still gonna get charged for it.

So does it really matter in regards to the criminal element? The better question is whether we should restrict the rights of millions of Virginians because of the thousand criminals who care less about the law or who they hurt? My answer is a big negative.

This also reinforces my strong opinion that at the genesis of every bad thing in America is a brigade of clueless lawyers. No offense to my lawyer readers, if I have any, but beavers build dams, and lawyers build laws. Rarely do either beavers or lawyers take the time to look down the creek and see the carnage that they are about to be responsible for.

Update: Great minds think alike. SailorCurt has up a similar post on the same subject over at The Sentinel. SailorCurt is on a roll these days!

Update: Here's more Virginia gun law stuff from The Sentinel, with VCDL president Philip Van Cleave fisking a silly anti-gun article. What I wanted to point out is this:

"In case anyone is worried about the volatile mix of alcohol and firearms, naysayers should know that the Senate bill requires guntoters to abstain and threatens them with - shudder! - misdemeanors if they don't."

Casting aside the ridiculous notion that misdemeanors are small potatoes, this seems to be the main thrust of the anti-gun hate for this bill nation wide.

"Guns and alcohol don't mix."

Then why is it that lawmakers insist on putting a footnote in these bills that allow cops to drink and carry? Anyone? Maybe it's because we're talking about cops, and not us mere mortal citizens. It's totally cool for a cop to throw back a few while armed, because hey, they might have to run out of Applebees in a hurry and arrest some Virginian in Olive Garden for having a glass of wine while open carrying. Oh, wait, that's actually legal.

Why this constant effort to create two classes of citizens? Cops get their powers from, From the citizenry. We are not subordinate to police officers. They cannot possess powers that we do not possess. So, they cannot have a free pass from the law because they cannot have something we cannot have. Common law, people.

The view from here

Since I've been stuck in the house for a week now, I decided to venture out yesterday for awhile to take some stuff to the post office, which was closed. I took that as an opportunity to take some cell phone pictures of the mighty Rappahannock river, which rarely freezes:






I thought the first picture was appropriate for the situation.

I also took this picture of a cannon in down town Fredericksburg:



I'm at home for a fourth day in a row because of the snow. We haven't lost power, so I don't have anything to complain about. It's hard getting any blogging time due to the constant needs and wants of my kids, but I'm trying. Hopefully today I'll get around to some of that reloading.

Well, I never did get around to reloading yesterday

Instead, while I was at the grocery store around the corner buying raisins and gun magazines, I get the call from my wife warning me about the catastrophe in the man cave. The flimsy metal shelving holding all of my sorted brass gave way and spilled everything on the floor.


The picture doesn't do it justice.

I spent my reloading time picking through thousands of assorted brass cases and putting them lovingly back into their bins. Sucked to be me.

The engineer that designed the metal shelf should be shot for blatant stupidity. It's like the design he used to slide past his drunken high school shop teacher to graduate. Really. I inherited the blasted thing with the house, and moved it over against the cabinet so that I could put my brass up there. I did notice what a piss poor design it was from the gitgo, but a quick trip to Home Despot showed that metal shelving is all made from this stupid design. A ten year old kid with half a brain could make something better.

For now, it's zip tied together until I can find a sensible replacement. I would imagine that the engineer has probably already darwin'd himself out of this world considering his advanced stages of idiocy, but if he's still around I hope he catches a nasty cold or something. Maybe a screaming case of the shits. Scumbag.

Virginia rattles its saber

--A House committee yesterday passed Del. Mark Cole's bill to get the federal government out of in-state commerce.

Cole's bill says that the federal government has no authority over commerce of goods made in Virginia that do not cross state lines.

This applies to firearms as well. Some of the comments question Virginia's place to challenge Congressional authority. But the way I see it, at the rate the federal government is going, and with the powers that they have cut for themselves from whole cloth, it's way past time that the states start to assert themselves.

This isn't subversive in the least; it's the way it's supposed to be. The tenth amendment isn't there to just look at; it's there to give the states something to throw their weight from against a federal government that always has, and always will, try to take more than they are allowed.

Virginia's machine is working like it was designed.

I blame Phil

Punxsutawney Phil, that is. This snow is his fault, and I'm gonna take this wonderful time given from my third snow day off from work to build a thousand handloads for my 308, just like the ones I shot at the bottom of this thread, and I'm gonna make a plan to assassinate his little buddies this spring.

One by one. Big und small.

Little exploding grog-hounds!

Tough talk

"The Taliban are ready to fight, to do jihad, to sacrifice their lives. American forces cannot scare the Taliban with big tanks and big warplanes," he said when reached by phone.

So says the militant little scumbag phoning in his tough talk from some cave in craptasticstan who has never locked horns with our big tanks and warplanes. Russian tanks and planes - sure, twenty years ago; but methinks that this time around will be different.

It's good too that y'all are ready to sacrifice your lives, as American forces are reluctant to sacrifice theirs, but more than happy to take yours.

"No battle plan ever survives contact with the enemy." - Helmuth von Moltke

Yup. Enjoy those virgins. You deserve them.

That's a stunning claim

"More women kind of have an interest in Tasers, preferred to a firearm," a gun store owner said.

That would be opinion not based on anything resembling fact. It's great that the guy is selling stuff and making a profit, and it's also good that women are looking into self defense; no qualms there.

What irks me is that this whole article is factually flawed.

Tasers don't always work, even for cops, and the advice from "safety experts" to just drop the thing after you shoot an attacker is pretty poor considering that Tasers can still be used to shock someone via contact with the front even after the single shot is deployed. So if you do happen to put an attacker on his ass with the probes, and then drop the weapon and run, there is always the possibility that he will get up and run you down. Then what? You dropped your weapon on the bad advice from an unkown source published in a local online article and are now unarmed. Well done.

What this is all boiling down to is that this shit article by an unknown journalist was not given even a passive attempt to verify defensive facts. We've come to expect this from them these days.

"If you use these and make a mistake, you're not actually killing somebody with it," Dalston said.

Uh-huh. And that is also the big downside to them. Why do all cops in the US carry a firearm, and only select few carry a Taser? Because if they make a mistake in the face of an attacker with a Taser, they might not effectively stop them with it, and must then resort to other measures.

"At least with the Taser, you have at least 60 to 90 seconds or more to actually get yourself to safety," Dalton said.

And typically when you use a firearm to stop an attacker, you have way longer than that. And more than that, you have up to 20 times more chances at stopping them too.

I'm not a Taser hater by any means, but they are not the most effective self defense tool in any way, shape, or form. My opinion is that they are a niche weapon. It just wouldn't hurt for some lowlife reporter or such to actually do their homework and point that out to their viewers from time to time, so that I don't have to.

Hey, it's a non drug and gun free school!!

Oh, I'm sure they had put up signs and all, but it doesn't seem to stop those crazy kids!

More on armed mom story

SailorCurt's hunch about the crazy son 'pretending' to rob his mom and getting shot for his troubles looks like it was spot on.

Son has lengthy drug related problems with the local police, and they believe that he was really trying to rob her. Well, that turned out to be a bad idea.

Mom may have some problems of her own since it was her weapon that had the obliterated serial number. Who knows.

Thanks to SailorCurt for the scoop!

More on pistol strong boxes

In an email, reader Bernie C. sends along his recommendation of the Fort Knox handgun safe that he has personal experience with. I like the mechanical opening over the electronic keypad on my safe, and the gas strut assisted opening is a plus as well. At $180, it's a little spendy, but buy once cry once.

My kids are getting old enough that they are just starting to explore the house, and they're too young for any sort of education. It's time I give a better look into gun storage.

My thanks to Bernie C.! I'll check those out!

Alive and kicking!

Mornin' folks. My internet just came back up this morning; yesterday the stolen connectivity on my neighbor's wireless was spotty, hence the sudden lack of posting.

I have had a blast four wheeling in the snow. I've got an Xterra, which was made for this type of weather. Even with that, I got hung up in my driveway and in a cul-de-sac and had to rock back and forth to get out. The freakin snow is that deep. I know, I know, the reporters on TeeVee (who were out in this mess I might add) were telling everyone that there is absolutely no reason to drive, that it is too unsafe. I have a legitimate reason to need access to the roadways, so I'm not going to sit on my ass until the roads get cleared. I must have a way out.

You will find out why soon enough.

I wouldn't have minded a little stimulus money this weekend either; I had a great shovel ready project to do. Good thing I skipped my workout on Friday.

I've been reading High Power Rifle Accuracy by Douglas E. Arnold and it seems like a great book. I'm still in the first chapter, reading about how to properly clean your barrel, and I stopped mid paragraph and went to Ganderous Mountainous to buy some cleaning stuff. Turns out I've been doing it wrong all along. The 308 got a good swabbing, and damned if a ton of copper came out. The Ar15 is next.

I haven't cruised through the news yet today for gun fisking goodness, and I don't think I'm going to. Since the .fed is closed today, I am home with the kids; and oooooh I just got off the phone with my wonderful mother, and I am cleared hot to bring them over for some grandparent time while I make some noise with the 308! Sweet gun blasty goodness!!!

Maybe I'll take the AR too!

Range report to follow - stay warm folks!

Note to morons: It is not funny to scare your armed mom

Ever the optimist - his mom is totally cool for carrying a .357 magnum wheelgun. She can shoot, too!

I do hope the moron has a full recovery.

Update: SailorCurt has a good point: what kind of moron dons a ski mask and tries to scare his mom with a gun that has a worn off serial number? Said moron is more likely a crack head that botched a real robbery of his mother, and claimed the whole thing was a big joke when mommy dearest put some holes in him. Good catch!

I'll just hang more kudos on the mother for not telling her son she carries a gun. Funny how such a little device can be such a big game changer.

It's not safe when someone gets shot there

"It's a horrific event and I hate it, and I wish we could have changed it, but our schools are safe," he told reporters.

So they weren't safe before? Of course not; we all know that. Silly signs with associated laws, and zero tolerance policies created to keep the lawyers off the backs of school officials in such an incident will not stop fourteen year old kids from doing the unthinkable.

This, one would think, would be common sense.

It's a horrible tragedy and my heart goes out to the deceased kids family.

So what point do I have in posting this? That school policy, and local, state, and federal laws are not crafted to prevent this from happening. The sooner we wake up to this notion, the sooner something real can be done to prevent future tragedies.

The founding fathers knew how to rock!

Creepy but kinda cool:



Found at Ace of Spades.

Blizzard of 2010 re-deux

More of the white stuff this weekend. So far we have about ten inches, and it's gonna come down all day. I've been crossed up at work trying to get through the week, in anticipation of this mess. It means I've got a little bit of work to do to my house, but lots of bloggy time.

Stay tuned.

Light blogging today

I'm a busy bee this morning, but I might get some time around lunch. We'll see.

Gun Cabinet Warning

About a year and a half ago, I bought a Stack-On pistol strong box that's made to put in a drawer. I never did use it because it is just a little too thick to place in any drawer that I use, so it has sat under my bed all this time. This morning I pulled it out because I have found a place to use it, but I noticed that it will not unlock when it's lying flat which is how it was designed; in order to get it to unlock, you have to stand it up. This causes a problem as you need two hands to access your firearm, and you can't see it when you reach for it, as the door hinges are on the to p.

I was surprised to find that the batteries were still good. The box seems strong enough, and it has two holes for mounting it to whatever; although I am the type of person to drill several more just to make sure it stays put. With this latest finding though, I can not trust it to keep a pistol locked up. I can only imagine swearing at this thing in the dark, trying desperately to get it open while some scumbag is busting the door down.

I thought I'd give y'all a heads up.

Seems harmless enough

If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and talks like a duck, well then, it's a duck, right?

Ummm, no.

In this case, a mentally disturbed man posing as a federal agent kidnapped and abducted a pregnant woman, leading her on a ride to deportation. No, you read that right; he put her on a flight and sent her to the Philippines.

So, our Homeland Security is so super awesome that a fat crackpot with a porno mustache can holster a weapon, hang a shiny thing on a beaded chain around his neck, pull on his $9 CTU T-shirt from Wal-Mart, and wander around a freakin airport with a kidnapped pregnant woman in handcuffs, and send her to another country!!!!! What?!!??!

B-b-b-but, he said he had an order from ICE!!

Hey morons!!! Crazy people claim crazy things!! It's your job, your duty, to FIND OUT IF THE CRACKPOT IS TELLING THE TRUTH!!!

I can be disarmed, arrested, and imprisoned because of a baggage mixup while on my way to Iraq, and that's totally cool. But porno mustache man can just do whatever the hell he wants in an airport and you let him because he lied? So why am I disarmed when going through an airport?

"Hey, fellas. . . .relax, . . . it's me, Jack Bauer. Yeah, they issue us MP5s these days, now, if you'll excuse me, I need to get on the plane. Thanks."

Idiocracy is here to stay.

This is why the internet exists

To provide endless stupid entertainment. I got a few good laughs out of that one.

Banning April

I was browsing through the VSP 2008 Crime Report this morning, and discovered that if we could just get rid of April, the already low crime rate in Virginia would be drastically reduced. Maybe I could petition the governor to just have it wiped off the calendar. Seems simple enough.

Hell, it's for the children, really, so who would possibly be against it.

Some tidbits in there that I thought were really cool:

1. If we locked up all men ages 20-24, we would reduce murders by a full quarter. The impact of this is totally worth it, as we would save not one life, but almost a hundred. You can't argue against this logic, you big meanie.
2. Holy freakin smokes! Black males from 15 to 29 years old make up pretty much half, HALF, of all the murders in Virginia. I won't add any snark here, cos' that's just a doggone shame. This should be a major focus of anyone looking at reducing crime in this state, as it probably should be in others. If someone really wants to reduce crime, figure out why young black men are killing young black men. We've covered this topic before.
   
3. Aggravated Assault. If you don't want to get into a round of fisticuffs, then don't argue with people. Just walk away; that parking space is not worth it.
   
4. Middle aged thirty something year old men burgle in the morning. And they tend to come in through a door.
   
5. Keep your car in the garage in August, and it shouldn't get stolen.
6. Despite what angry, white Republican politicians tell you about drugs and crime, alcohol is by far the most influential factor in violent crime by about six fold. I mean, you're more likely to get fondled inappropriately by a pasty skinned computer geek than a crackhead. OK, that's just one example, but drugs don't seem to be the factor in violent crime that people think.
7. Automatic weapons are rarely used in crimes. I say again, automatic weapons are rarely used in crimes.
8. Assault thingies. There isn't a statistic for the dreaded machines of death mentioned, but rifles in general - which are more likely to be grandpappy's Marlin thutty-thutty - are rarely used in crime. In short, rifles are not favored by criminals, assault or otherwise.
9. Firearms are not the weapon of choice for attacking cops; personal weapons are, which is also true of attacks against us regular folk. The report does not go into detail on what constitutes a personal weapon, but my gut has quickly determined that they are mostly guillotines. Having a guillotine thrown at you is absolutely a deadly threat, and you should respond by moving laterally, drawing your own guillotine, and returning fire. Make sure you do a tactical 180 when the threat is down. Very important.
10. More: Asians, Pacific Islanders, American Indians, and native Alaskans are good people.
    

That's all I've got for right now. Busy day, and a busy week. Sorry about getting carried away with my little tirade yesterday. I get wound up every now and then and go into a profanity laced spiel that serves no purpose whatsoever. I do enjoy some profanity though, from time to time.

Paying good money for what we would do for free

Well, since the ever fruitful white-tailed deer population is up around Camp David, the gov't is proud to piss away more of our hard earned money sending "government sharpshooters" to thin the heard.

The real takeaway in this is that the local population of the human species would jump at the chance to harvest 2,000 deer from that area, but alas, they would be operating too close to the King's castle. Can't have that, so we must pay men who have kissed the king's ring to do what we would do for free.

Pity.

Represeh-ehn

Congrats to Caressa Cameron for her Miss America win. She hails from the greater Fredericksburg area; and not that I follow the Miss America pageant or anything, but it would seem that around here we have a dog in the fight. . . .er, wait. Maybe that's a bad choice of words.

I wish her the best.

The Paranoid American

I link to this Hot Air post this morning because it really touched on how I feel. "What's a matter with you Americans?" Read it; it's spot on.

I can't speak for all Americans, but no doubt some are like me. I am naturally paranoid, and have a definite militant sort of nature. I am not at all a violent person; in fact, I am the type of person who is more than willing to give any sort of help to a stranger because I love my fellow man. I love human beings. I am drawn to serve for the good of others, at the expense of my own life if need be. And I am strongly skeptical of those who position themselves in places of authority or power and then claim that they are acting for the better of all. Most of the time they are selling snake oil.

Human beings will always have self interest in everything they do. That is not a flaw; people can still do selfless acts despite having that natural self interest. I believe that people who run for public office may very well want to help others - good intentions and all that - but the opportunity to advance their self interest goes starkly up with that power, and the road to hell I've heard is gorgeous.

I consider anyone who runs for any office to be a potential scumbag. By the very act of wanting that authority over others, as well intentioned as one may be, that individual has shown that they want to control others. Period. And at this point in my life, I am weary of people wanting to run my life for me; wanting to make my life better; wanting to take what is mine to make someone else's life better; wanting to take what is mine to advance science; wanting to take what is mine to save the whales, etc. I am weary of these intentions and I don't care about them. I don't trust you as far as I can through you, and I will not vote for you if you have ever passed a law, wanted to pass a law, or ever expressed or confessed a desire to pass a law that barred a human being from doing one thing, in the hopes of allowing another to do any other thing.

Unless you are in the business of passing laws that strip power from yourselves, or bar other public officials from meddling in the day to day affairs of Americans, than consider me opposed to your every move.

Yes, I understand that sending astronauts to the moon advances society, and that the money has to come from somewhere. I really do. But a dog can only stand to have so many fleas. You have had enough blood from me. So I'm telling you, leave my shit alone. I don't want to be a part of your vision of utopia. I am fully aware that people are starving all over the world; and if you tax 99% of every American's paycheck to buy them a sandwich, there will still be people starving all over the world. The same goes for the animals. Stop extorting my money to save the fucking dolphins, the whales, the desert tortoise, the chickens, and the polar bears: I Don't Care! They will die with or without the fruits of my labor, just like they have since the beginning of time.

When I was a kid, my parents taught me that if I took something away from someone against their will, no matter what kind of well intentioned ideas I may have, it was stealing. Taking from someone against their will = stealing. Got it. So when you take from me to give to another, it is against my will and it is stealing. Stealing! You got that! Virginia, are you listening? Governor McDonnell, are you listening? Mr. President, Congress, are y'all listening? I don't give one teensy weensy little tiny piece of shit about anything you are trying to give to me, or any other. It is not selfish. It is just reality. If you want to sit around all day conjuring up ways to stop people from doing shit, Fine. You can start by looking at ways to keep your hands to yourself, because I am not interested in any of your other ideas, and it looks like the vast majority of Americans feel the same way.

Jobs? Can y'all even create jobs? Of course you can't. You can either create the illusion that you're creating jobs, you can claim credit for creating jobs even though you didn't, or you can do us all a favor and get the fuck out of everyone's way and let them find jobs for themselves. Seems to me like y'all are the ones who caused this mess in the first place, at least in part, and you can definitely help the American people get back to work by just going home and watching some TV. Put your pen down, and go home.

I honestly can't imagine what good can come from people who go to work every single day with the intent to create a law with their name on it, just to stop someone from doing something. Why does Congress even work all day? Why can't they just meet once or twice a year, pass the budget, and then go home - just like they did to start with? When I hear some Congressman gloat about all the hard work their doing, I get really pissed off, because I know that they are ultimately working towards either stealing from Peter to give to Paul, or they are working on making some other facet of our lives illegal. If you think about it, they can't actually make something legal. Government can't give you liberties; they can only take them. So with their every day efforts, they work towards fucking you out of your liberty.

Just look at what has been done with Concealed Carry. Everyone I know smiles ear to ear when they get that paper card in the mail that says that they can carry a gun. I look at it with contempt. Why is it that people think that they can give me something I already own? A permit is not a liberty. It's not a freedom. It is exactly the opposite. Stimulus? You want to stimulate the economy? How about you give back the 30% of the labor that you forcefully take from everyone, and let them spend it on what they want. That way, it doesn't get wasted in the cogs of the most inefficient spending machine ever devised.

So from now on, you folk working on public office, just leave me out of your plans. If you must do something from day to day to draw a paycheck because you have no other skills, then work on dismantling this goat rope of statutes that you have created. Go on, there's plenty there to work on. Should keep you feeding at the public trough for centuries. Humanity will flourish when you scumbags finally move out of the way.

Update: Case in point. President Obama, you have no business meddling in this. You are Commander in Chief, not the head of college football; you were not hired for this. It is not your job. That you have focused even a moment of attention on this on public time means you are wasting the public's money which you do not have permission to use. Put your pen down and stay in your fucking lane!