What could possibly go wrong?

On Tuesday, the United Nations again made itself an international laughing stock – except perhaps to the American taxpayers who continue to foot 22 percent of the bill – by appointing North Korea chair of the U.N. Conference on Disarmament.

Well, it is for only four weeks, and it's not like they were the first pick; it works via alphabetical order, and Madagascar or some other country already got their shot (My pun, can you feel it?). It still makes me wonder why the rest of the U.N. conference can't just skip over North Korea like short people get skipped to play basketball and maybe pick a country that is not so insane, like Nigeria.

In other news, Mayors Against Guns has picked Lee Boyd Malvo to be the next spokesman against gun violence.

Appendix Carry

I've been intrigued with appendix carry for quite some time, especially so after I saw a man open carrying a Glock 17 in Home Despot that way over a year ago. Why in the world would I want to carry a gun on the front of my hip? Speed. Appendix carry uses the body's natural mechanics to minimize movement during the draw, and the end result is a natural and fast draw.

But how fast?

This fast:


Yes, I know that Jim Zubiena is a badass with a 1911, but it still shows how fast the draw can be when there is little distance between your hand and your gun.

If you want to know more about appendix carry, check out this Pistol-Training.com thread on the subject.

There is a downside to this form of carry, and that is that if you botch the reholstering of your pistol, you could blow a big gaping hole in your satchel or femoral artery, as the gun will be aimed at your crotch. Speed reholstering is stupid to begin with, and even more so when your holster is strapped to the front of your britches at the 2:30 position. Naturally, you would slow down and think carefully when you reholster, and you could also use a pistol with a hammer and keep some thumb pressure on that baby. If you have a Glock, which doesn't have a hammer, the folks at Pistol-Training.com are in the process of getting a patent on The Gadget, which is like adding a hammer to the Glock, but without the hammer. You will have to go there and see what it is because it really can't be explained. The Gadget will work well for appendix carry, and probably won't add any major cost to your pistol. Also, the benefit of not killing yourself or turning your balls into a pink mist when holstering your firearm is priceless, so there's that.

These days there are holsters expressly made for appendix carry. I do not have any holsters that are made for it, but that will be remedied in the near future. From everything I have read, if you try to use a regular holster for appendix carry, it will be very uncomfortable, which is what my limited experience has told me as well. Also, this mode of carry favors the svelte individual, which I am slowly becoming the opposite of. That means I will have to drastically cut back on the number of Stellas that I consume, with that being a good idea anyways. I'll ring back in with the results in the next couple of months with a holster review.

More mob attacks

There was a big street brawl in DC, a mob of 75+ teens in Cleveland, Ohio were running around punching people, and in Philadelphia, PA a group of people numbering approximately 100 were running around town assaulting people, breaking one woman's leg.

At some point or another, a youthful mob attack is going to be stopped by someone with an AR fresh out of a Magpul training course, and this behaviour will hopefully be a thing of the past. Considering these attacks have been all over the news in the past few weeks and are well known to be incredibly violent, folks should know what to expect if they're caught up in one. I'm not interested in being the guy on the news who got head-stomped by a bunch of excited kids, and I don't know anybody else who is. The savages need to stop pounding the war drums.

Whammo ammo

This weekend I made a point to go out and do some handgunnery considering I have neglected my mental health for a good while now. I had some ammo given to me by a coworker who somehow or another ended up with it, but doesn't own any firearms to shoot it with. Among the free stuff was 120 or so 200 grain semi wadcutters that were handloaded with W231, as well as a box of 185 grain Hornady HP and 200 grain Gold Dots, all in .45 ACP of course.

Shooting the handloads while doing draws was a lot of fun. With a government sized 1911, a Kimber TLE RLII, I could click off rounds very fast, getting quick follow up shots rapidly as there was not a whole lot of recoil. The slide chugga chugged along slowly making things easy on the gun. Later on that night, my brother put a bug in my head about upgrading my carry ammo - 230 grain standard pressure Remington Golden Sabers.

There's nothing wrong with Golden Sabers; they've been around for a long time now and have a proven pedigree, but the bullet design is a bit dated, and they are known for core/jacket separation. I have personally witnessed this from shooting them into 5 gallon buckets full of moist dirt. About two out of every ten will have the jacket come off, but the hollow point bullet does expand every time, which I rate second to reliable cycling in my gun. I've run a couple of hundred Golden Sabers without a hiccup through my blaster, and they hit to point-of-aim and are damned accurate.

Once I find a load that works, I'm generally reluctant to change as the cost of one to two hundred rounds for function testing is not in my budget, but I have thought about trying some new loads for the hell of it. I'm not the only one to think about updating my trusted Golden Sabers - Tam came to the same conclusion about the same time I did, and my brother convinced me to check out some modern CCW fodder in the way of Federal HST and/or Winchester Ranger Ts. To further that, the details from a shooting at a gas station in Dayton, Ohio have come to light, and it got me thinking that I needed to be using the best ammo that I can.

In the Ohio shooting incident, two drunk and high scumbags attacked a man at the gas pump and tried to drag him from his vehicle to do who knows what. The victim pulled a Glock 36 and fired two rounds into the guts of one scumbag, the first round being a 230 grain FMJ, and the second being 165 grain Cor-Bon Powerball. The shootee immediately ceased his attack and took up the fetal position on the deck, while the other scumbag poked at him probably saying something along the lines of "you ok bruh?" The shooter took off and dialed 911. Despite all the talk of the incident and the things that went wrong, the ammo did its job and stopped the attack cold. The shootee did survive the two rounds to the center of his abdomen, which has generated some talk about ammo effectiveness.

With all this in mind, I hit the local funshow this weekend looking for some of that Federal HST. I didn't find it, but I did see a whole lot of the Winchester Ranger Ts in 230 grain +P, which use the "Black Talon" design bullet of doom, without the black lubaloy coating. Taking it as divine encouragement, I picked up three boxes of it for function checking in the Kimber. As it turns out, my gun does not like the ammo at all, and I don't blame it.

The recoil was tremendous from my gun. I have shot a great deal of .44 magnum in my time, as well as 10mm, and none of those were as unpleasant as this stuff. The web of my hand was swollen afterwords where the beavertail grip was smashing into it. From a rest, I did manage a 2" 25 yard group minus the first round, which went low, but firing off pairs was a disaster in the making, as there was no way to manage the recoil effectively. I couldn't keep a pair of shots on a paper plate at 15 yards unless I slowed down considerably. In the 70 rounds I fired, I had six or seven malfunctions, four of them being when the slidestop became partially engaged. That could have been from my thumbs hitting it inadvertently, which doesn't happen when I use ammo that doesn't go off like a hand grenade in the chamber. The other malfunction was a nosedive type feeding issue where the round is still in the magazine and the bullet nose is jammed against the barrel hood. Years ago I swore that I would not shoot +P ammo in a 1911, as I don't think it's warranted for the cartridge, and yesterday I relearned that lesson. None of these malfunctions gave me confidence in the ammo, so I am back to the Golden Sabers for the time being.

All in all, I would be better served shooting the 200 grain wadcutters over the Ranger Ts. The Ranger Ts do come in a standard pressure loading, so I'll look for those. I don't know if the Federal HSTs come in standard pressure, but I'm going to look for those as well. I've looked at the Gold Dots and various loadings from Cor-Bon, but I don't see me taking out a loan to buy one box of ammo, so those are out. I'll be studying ammo pretty hard for the next week or so, and maybe next payday I'll find something that works.

Interesting revelations in Project Gunwalker

There is more and more evidence coming out that the ATF was using Project Fast and Furious as a means for fluffing up the numbers of weapons going to Mexico in order to give US lawmakers a chance to push more gun control. If you notice, there's a name of an ATF Special Agent that keeps popping up - Agent Bill Newell, whom I've mentioned a few times before as one who is on the front lines to convince the US public that we're the cause of the cartels having weapons.

Reportercreature: "It doesn't seem like it's that difficult for them to get these guns."

ATF Special Agent Bill Newell Mangan: "It's uh, it's as easy as crossing the border."

With the help of our government, apparently.

This is going to be a major scandal, with or without the help of our shit media organizations. Good on the ATF agents and other ABC agents who have come out against Project Fast and Furious, and shame on agents like Newell who carry the water for gun controllers through lies and deceit.

**Update: A letter from Senator Grassley to ATF Director Kenneth Melson. All I can say about that is OUCH!! If you read nothing else on this page or from the links I have provided, check out Senator Grassley's questions at the bottom of his letter. They are covered from point to hilt in barbs.

***Update: The video I posted above was not Special Agent Newell. You can see him here in the video on this page talking about straw buyers, concealing the fact that he had a large hand in allowing those very guns be sold to criminals.

No fighting chance

In the hallways of police headquarters, some police officials were struggling to understand the incident, saying it didn’t sound right.

Even Mayor Francis Slay reacted to the news with skepticism, wondering how three Marines, one of whom was carrying a knife, would lose their knife and a wallet to two un-armed men.

There is this idea perpetuated that Marines are always armed and itching for a fight. While this may be true in combat, and sometimes not even then (ask me how I know), the reality of the situation is closer to what the Marine Corps Spokeswoman said, that Marines are encouraged not to get into an altercation over anything other than a fight for your life. To neck that down to something less official to give to a media weeny, Marines are flatly told that getting into a fight out in public will lead to an end in your career, or a severe demotion, oftentimes being the exact same thing.

You think that the Marine Corps would trust their Marines, but there is no trust. They are not allowed to resist the criminal element, and are denied the means to do so, even on a base.

This was noted during the Fort Hood shooting, where the media was scratching their head in disbelief that a single man armed with a handgun could kill so many Soldiers armed with M16s, when they didn't know that military bases are very strictly kept Gun Free Zones. Paul Helmke even pointed out how the shooting went down at a "heavily fortified Army base", when it isn't very fortified at all, and is filled to the brim with unarmed Soldiers.

Back to the article, here you have two men who swore an oath to protect this nation and are willing to bet their life to uphold that oath, and they are barred from preventing their own robbery on their own soil by a threat of being kicked out of their Service with dishonor. Those Marines did exactly what they were instructed to do, and now the nation will read this article over a cup of coffee this morning and wonder why two highly trained warriors are such pussies. I guess that's better than a lawsuit. Frickin' blood sucking lawyers.

This is a tangent, but I say it again - behind every problem in this country is a battalion of scumbag lawyers. Every stupid "zero tolerance" policy ever imagined can ultimately be traced to its genesis, which is some team of attorneys who only know how to attorn. I complain about that, but I guess every ecosystem has to have maggots to pick the flesh from the bones.

St Louis is a beautiful city, and it's a blast to be there as a Marine. I highly recommend donning a toga during a weekend bar hopping tour while downtown. Not that I've ever done that. That said, there are some very very dangerous parts there, and combine that with a Marine's penchant for strong drink, and some bad policy making it a shameful crime to prevent some scumbags from taking your stuff, and you have yourself a clown show. It's a disgusting shame that the Marine Corps doesn't trust its own to carry a modern self defense tool, but they should at least give them a fighting chance by not barring them from breaking a few noses if threatened by criminals. Marines do know the difference between right and wrong, or they wouldn't be sent into another country with a terrifying arsenal designed to allow them to kill every bad guy in sight while not killing any innocent civilians. Have a little trust.

Dis-Sworderly conduct

In Maryland, an edgy fellow with a grudge and a sword threatens people with the steel, including children!!!Gasp!! Fortunately he sheathed the beast before the cops showed up and forced him onto the path to righteousness.

I do wonder about the charge of carrying a weapon with an intent to injure; I would bet that if he had threatened the responding police officers, they would have shot him very dead, with the investigation and AAR stating that the maniac with the sword represented a deadly threat that had to be stopped with a hail of gunfire. And right they would have been.

One trench at a time

A small town victory in Fairfax, Virginia where air gun legislation was addressed in order to bring it down to something less insane. It appears that despite media hype, there was no opposition to my fellow Virginians who stood in front of the Board of Stupervisors and supported the bill. VCDL President Phillip Van Cleave gives a down to earth statement about what it all means here in this video, and the reporter does a balanced job of covering the issue without butchering the facts.

Wish I had been there.

To catch a predator

Two and four legged predators have become a serious threat to the people of DC. No doubt the black bear was innocently looking for a quick snack, like a jogger or unattended stroller or something, while the scumbag is looking for self gratification at the expense of his victims. Both nuisances could be remedied swiftly by a responsible individual using a modern self defense tool, but such things are not permitted to the citizens. Until they are, it looks like personal safety of DCians is in the super capable hands of the uniformed division.

I wouldn't get my hopes up.

Where was the security?

Prosecutors say Alkebular attacked the 14-year-old boy twice on April 25 inside and outside the zoo. According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, the victim recognized the group Alkebular was with and tried to avoid it. Several people attacked the victim inside the zoo led by Akebular, who stabbed him twice in the arm before his group fled.

He then went on to catch up with the victim later and stab him in the guts repeatedly.

Uuuummmmm, the Smithsonian Zoo is a Gun Free Zone that is protected by a full time staff of security personnel. A quick check confirms the stipulation right there on their webpage that they "ensure your safety," and that carrying knives there is against the rules. I'm thinking the victim's parents have grounds for a claim against the Smithsonian, as getting stabbed multiple times by a group of youths runs counter to the idea of ensured safety. Notice the specific mention of knives and weapons:

Do not bring any sharp items into the museums such as knives (including pocket or "Swiss Army"-style knives), screwdrivers, scissors, nail files, corkscrews, etc. Firearms, pepper spray, and Mace are also prohibited.

Officer friendly at the top of the page, who appears to be gleefully handing out a parking ticket, looks to have a firearm on his duty belt. Lots of good it did the victim. If kids can wander into an allegedly secure area and stab people with impunity, than it's not really secure, and all you're doing with a policy like that is disarming everyone else. This sort of attack can happen to anyone at that zoo, and is the reason why I have/will never take my family there. I have actual knowledge that the Virginia Beach Zoo and the Virginia Beach Aquarium does not disarm its visitors, so I'll stick with going there.

An instrument of criminal intent

We must ban Twitter. Do it for the children!

Called “flash robs,” these crimes are being organized by young teenagers through various social media outlets, most notably Twitter. Police say the suspects select a time and place and enter the store in droves taking what they want and leaving before security or police can catch them.

Interesting. Looking at some of the examples at the bottom of the article, like the robbery in Las Vegas, makes me reconsider carrying a Glock 17. Twenty plus dudes bursting into a small store and getting violent, taking anything they can get their hands on - I wouldn't want to be standing there when it happens with only six rounds of .380 acp standing between me and the crowd.

What happens if they decide that one of the things they would like to have is your wife? Puts things into perspective now, doesn't it? If they are brazen enough to assemble for a mass shoplifting, maybe if a couple of them decides that that is not enough and there's more fun to be had, the rest will be brazen enough to join in.

A special thanks goes out to the fearless investigator from St. Paul telling people that if they are in such a situation, to make sure to be an especially good witness. Nothing in there about surviving the encounter; just pay close attention to the forty people in the store and hope that one of them doesn't take you out for your troubles.

Those videos really make me miss my Glock 20 that I had to sell years ago. Pity.

Robbery/Murder in a NYC pharmacy

I'm not trying to dance in the blood of the dead, but I thought I would again point out that you can never place your faith in the hands of a scumbag. The mantra of "just give them what they want" and the "don't resist or you'll only get hurt" policies wore through here, and a great tragedy happened:

The man was armed with a handgun, stole prescription drugs and killed everyone in the shop before fleeing with a black backpack.

The shootings happened at about 10:20 a.m. inside a family-owned pharmacy in a small cluster of medical offices in Medford, a middle-class hamlet on Long Island about 60 miles east of New York City.

Sometimes it's just not about the robbery. Why on earth did that man decide to kill those four people? Maybe to get rid of the witnesses? Who knows. I hope they catch the scumbag soon.

The murder happened in a decent part of town according to the statements from those who live there. My guess is that's why the scumbag sought out that particular store.

Probably has been posted before, but. . .

A fully functioning, magazine fed, bolt action sniper rifle. . . . . made of legos. Too cool!

Not gun related, but cool none the less

Checking out this morning's Over Night Thread at Ace of Spades yielded this video of industrial shredding machines and the things they are capable of destroying, which is everything.

I guess whirling blades eating a couch is appropriate material for this blog!

Making high tech weaponry for warfighting

The Libyan rebels are manufacturing some very advanced weapons to fight their government with. When I used to think about rebels building weapons, I thought about the cave dwelling folks who make knock-off Browning High Powers by forging pot metal against rocks, not former cab drivers making robots with remote controlled machine guns.



Technology rules!

Who doesn't want a gun like the A-10?!?

The age old arguement of which fighter plane is better leads to an ARFCOM poster dropping this beauty ***NSFW: Language***:



Being the open minded guy that I am, I have to see the awesomeness in all aircraft. I still think the Spitfire is the sexiest plane ever made.

Pro gun win in Ohio

CHICAGO (Reuters) – Ohio lawmakers on Wednesday passed a bill allowing gun owners in the state to carry concealed weapons into bars and other establishments where alcohol is served.

The General Assembly passed the bill, which also eases restrictions on how guns can be transported in vehicles, in a 55-38 vote.

Good for Ohio. The last sentence in the article mentions that opponents think mixing guns and alcohol would be bad for the public, but they must not have read the law thoroughly as it explicitly states that guns and alcohol cannot be lawfully mixed. The same thing was argued here in Virginia when a similar law was passed, but the opponents didn't read the fine print apparently.

Crazy people roundup

A shooting victim at the funeral of a shooting victim, in Chicago. Why, there aught to be a law or something to prevent stuff like this from happening. Maybe make the whole daggone city a place that is free from idiots with guns. What a swell idea.

Also, TSA screeners conducting an intense scrotum search found a bunch of heroin on a traveler. Oh wait, did I say TSA screeners? My mistake; it was Customs Inspectors, and they weren't sexually assaulting him when they found the drugs, they were interviewing him. Weird. Who would have known that old fashioned police work would produce results?

And again, hailing from Stafford, Virginia we have a psychotic woman ramming her car into another car, all the while her 1 year old is safely strapped into the back seat. Now this may come as a huge surprise, but the whole incident was allegedly started over a man. Shocking!

Kansas City shows off its lunatics with some parents who were off doing who knows what while their crazy ferret ate the fingers off their four month old. Leaving your kids in an air conditioned car while you buy a lottery ticket is grounds these days for state charges, so these people had to know that it was a bad idea to leave their infant at home alone. With an animal that is known to bite.

Now, as you go about your day, look to your left and your right at all the friendly people you encounter and know that at least one of them is batshit crazy. Pay attention to your surroundings at all times.

High end knife making

If you've ever been fortunate to see a hand made knife crafted by a true artist, you may wonder why they can fetch upwards of $750 or more. If you want to know why they cost so much, and what you can expect the knife maker to go through to build it, check out this picture thread by Stan Wilson as he takes you through countless hours building a custom knife for a customer. Lots of sweat went into making it, and it takes the use of special equipment and a steady, gifted hand to create. This man's knives are worth every penny. Simply amazing.

Who's BAD!?!?

I seem to be on a music post-title kick this morning, but that's how I'm programmed.

Haji has a review of Magpul's Battery Assist Device (BAD, get it?), which he stretched out on the range to see how it works. Looks like a quality upgrade for an AR rifle for those that shoot them often. Practicing with it looks to be key, as it slightly modifies the manual of arms, and you don't want to be they schmoe who clicks off a round into a buddy's foot while changing magazines.

My rifles are currently tasked with collecting dust samples from the inside of the safe while I feebly swat at life's little problems, so I'm thankful and intrigued of others who take the time to try out new equipment and post their findings.

Good stuff!

It's just the beast under your bed

An Idaho family was driven from their home and into bankruptcy by "hundreds and hundreds" of snakes that slithered inside the walls as they slept and left them and their children terrified.

I giggled my ass off when I read this short article, and the whole time I wrote this post. Don't judge me for my gallows humor - I feel bad for them, I really do, but there's something about a story of a family moving into a house that is literally writhing with snakes that makes me laugh insanely like an old man in an asylum that just found a piece of saltwater taffy in his pajama pocket. It's beyond awful, and terribly funny.

It reminded me of when I lived in a room by myself in the barracks on Camp Lejeune many years ago. I got some new neighbors one day, and I suspect that they did a thorough spring cleaning of that room because a few days later I woke up in the middle of the night with cockroaches crawling all over me. They were everywhere; all over the ceiling, the walls, the furniture, and they were even in my computer tower and refrigerator. Each barracks building is like its own little city, so there is no way to effectively get rid of them; they live in whatever room they feel that they get the best rent, so to speak, and will move from one room to another.

I lived in absolute horror for several days. The roaches were eating my mattress, the foam on my computer speakers, and anything else they wanted to feed on. They crawled on my face at night, and didn't even bother to scatter when I came home from work. I estimated their strength to be about a brigade sized element, maybe larger. It didn't matter that I kept the room clean and threw out all the food, they just kept coming. Their ingress point was the bathroom - the head, in Marine/Navy jargon - and one morning while brushing my teeth, watching the little fuckers pour out of the faucet like they were entering a DC nightclub, I grabbed a nearby can of WD-40 and tried to hose one down the drain. I swear I heard that roach scream out loud in torturous pain, his little antennae swishing back and forth, and at that moment it was like I was holding Excalibur. I laid the roaches to waste. At night I would make a slick barrier of sweet, sweet, water displacing formula forty around the doorway to the bathroom so they couldn't get in, and every morning for about four days there would be thirty or more dead roaches where the tile met the carpet -- the WD-40 had killed them on contact. I sprayed a box around my bed, and coated each of the bed's legs, too. Every roach hotel in the room was treated with WD-40 until one morning, there were no dead roaches at my bathroom door. They were gone; packed up their shit and left town.

I feel sorry for whomever or wherever they settled after that. I am certain some filthy Marines several doors down regretted leaving half empty pizza boxes on the floor, sweaty sox on the coffee table, and old Mad Dog 20-20 bottles on the counter. Sleep tiiiiiiiiiight, don't let the bedbugs bite!

Muhhuhahah!! MUHUUHAAAHAHAAAA!!!!!

Just some good ol' boys . . . .

. . . .never meanin' no har. . .

Sheriff Maj. David Decatur says Douglas Edward Turner went banging on the "victim's" door just before midnight demanding that he come outside. When the man opened his door, Turner came at him with a chainsaw. Turner cut up a handrail but did not injure the victim, who ran back inside and locked the door.

Stafford county heathens just doing what they do best. The moral of this story is never bring a chainsaw to a baseball bat fight. Tell me you knew I was going to say that. Also, if someone is braying on your door at midnight, and you hear an idling two-stroke engine on the other side, it's a safe bet that you can go ahead and back away from the door and call the cops. Hasn't the homeowner ever seen a slasher movie before?

And another thing, I don't know about you, but I qualify a chainsaw as being a deadly weapon, and not just a tool for wounding maliciously; you can bet that this crazy sumbich would have been shot the moment he breached the walls of my house with that thing. If there was one time an AR15 with all the accoutrements could be readily prepared and wielded against a bona fide madman in the process of sawing his way into your domicile at night, it was in this attack, and the homeowner grabs a stick of wood instead. At least he used it well.

Terminology fail

MISSOULA, Mont. – Authorities searching a 30-square-mile swath of rugged Montana forest for a former militia leader and survivalist say the man was prepared for his shootout with sheriff's deputies and left several caches of food in the area.

Alright, so the guy they're tracking sounds like he's not come to a peaceful agreement with his government in quite some time, but what's with branding him a survivalist? Aren't we all survivalists, or do some humans not breath air?

Slack suck: Johnny Law Edition

Capitol Police are unhappy about a new management decision banning shorts on officers assigned to the Capitol.

Oh yeah! Time to dress like a professional, motherfuckers! All the cool people are doing it. Where are you gonna put that Emerson folder now, po-po man? Not enough room for your walkie aaaaaaaaand your baton? Ha!

Oh, wait:

But union representatives told Roll Call that Inspector Donald Roullier, who oversees the department’s Capitol Division, made the decision based on appearances – particularly the fact that officers in short pants do not look good carrying large automatic rifles.

Do officers in any pants look good carrying large automatic rifles? That's like saying a hunchback look less conspicuous and deformed wearing Oxfords vice some sneakers; it doesn't make any sense. Hopefully officers will maintain professionalism despite the length of their duds. Maybe if they're lucky, the bureaucrat-in-chief will let them wear pants that have more than a couple of tiny pockets, like maybe some TAD, Woolrich, or 5.11s. My workplace has outlawed common-sense attire in favor of britches that were designed by slaves in 1622, and we all look fabulous as hell because of it. I feel so professional sitting in my cubicle with my keys digging into my ass that I want to be as productive as I can! It amuses me now to know that somebody else has to live in my hell and experience a pointless attire change.

And what's with cops wandering around our nation's capitol with automatic rifles? What do they think this country is - Britain?

Magnitudes of violence

I have to take this article with a grain of salt, as it is an interview from a single hidden source named "Juan" conducted by media types known for telling tall tales. If it is true, and really there's not much reason to think otherwise, than violence in Mexico is way worse than I thought.

In one of the most chilling revelations yet about the violence in Mexico, a drug cartel-connected trafficker claims fellow gangsters have kidnapped highway bus passengers and forced them into gladiatorlike fights to groom fresh assassins.

For all I knew, the cartels were only out to kill each other, and any government employees who interfered in the slaughter. I fail to see the problem in violent groups killing each other off, unless they are hurting innocent people. Mentally putting myself on a bus in Mexico, unarmed, and getting stopped by these crazies so that they can make a sport of me fighting others to the death has me a bit disconcerted though, as without a means of resistance I would be helpless. I can not adequately imagine that scenario despite my mind's capable abilities, and I suppose that's a good thing.

Comparing Mexico's violence with the US, I can see that they have taken it to a level that we will hopefully never go. We complain when a federal ABC agency shoots up a citizen in his recliner or a half dozen girls are found murdered in a swamp, and rightly so, but it still does not compare to finding 200 beheaded corpses buried in a shallow grave behind the grocery store every other weekend or full scale firefights between fifty men at the mall. I hope those things do not become commonplace here in America.

Hoarders

A discussion with pics at ARFCOM.

When I was a teenager, my dad and I went to go look at a job at a gorgeous house. . . . .on the outside. The inside of that house was so vile that I wanted desperately to take a shower after we left. The pics on the ARFCOM thread were not on par with what I saw, which was stuff and things piled all the way to the ceiling in every room, with a narrow walkway to shuffle through sideways to get around. There was cat shit and vomit all over too, just like in the thread, so that must be part of being a hoarder.

We never did take that job.

A chance encounter

BOSTON (Reuters) – A mountain lion was killed just 70 miles from New York City early on Saturday morning, and officials were trying to determine if it was the same big cat spotted a week ago roaming the posh suburb of Greenwich, Connecticut.

A mountain lion was also seen in a suburb of New York City 30 miles away last week, leading everyone to believe the dead cat is one and the same. Sounds likely to me. My thoughts though go to this:

"By and large, cougars want to stay as far away from people as they possibly can because they are so solitary," said Bob Wilson, a co-founder of The Cougar Network, an organization devoted to tracking and researching the animal.

Wilson said mountain lions like to hunt in the shadows and it would be a very remote chance to encounter the cat.

Well now, this cougar didn't conform to the little box that you placed him in, did he, considering that New York City and Connecticut suburbs are are chock full of people? The cat was wandering around really close to people, one or several of which could have had a bad encounter with it if someone hadn't encountered it to death with the grill of their Pathfinder.

People may call me paranoid, but I stay prepared for any predator, two legged or four, at all times because despite what the experts say, primitive thinking animals are unpredictable; that is how they were programmed. I don't know if .380 ACP is sufficient for stopping mountain lion, but I do believe it's far more effective than hope.

A TT-33 as the murder weapon?

I think the more likely story is that the reporter creature just Googled "handgun" and picked the first picture that came up. The article has absolutely no information other than a 16 year old was murdered in Prince George's County. Big shocker there, I know.

D.C.'s annual sausage riders protest fossil fuels

CTone, what in the hell does that even mean? I don't know, but I thought "Topless Bike Riders Take DC" was very misleading, if not outright false advertising. Well, I guess eleven dudes in thongs qualifies as "topless;" how they talked the hippie chick into coming along is the question of the day.

This massive protest consisting of a dozen people was done in the name of ending US dependence on fossil fuels. One can only presume then that their ultimate goal is to see America sit on its collective ass and do absolutely nothing, as people need to be able to travel to work and have power to run industrial equipment to facilitate commerce. Hey though, with all that spare time we would all be able to chill out, hit the bong, and think of unique ways of protesting things that cannot be changed!

Far out!

Details on the Chicago robbery spree

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Spousal Unit Fail

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

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

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

King of Battle

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

Dogs bark; snakes bite. . . .

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

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

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

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

Welcome to the Jungle. . . .

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




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

Thanks ARFCOM!

Live in Northern Virginia and need shooting supplies?

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

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

A firearm on the loose!!

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

Global control

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

Laaaaawww the doooo daaaaa daaaaay

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Laughing to tears

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

1911 Commemorative Knife

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

Fit and finish look top notch, too!

Open Carry is still fashionable

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

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

A Russian version of me!

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



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

Magazine capacity is not just for zombies

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

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

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

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

Kids say the darndest things

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

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

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

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

How to Ninja Pimp your Glock, posted without commentary.




Found here at ARFCOM

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

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

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

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

Found at Ace of Spades.

More video clips on the FN SCAR PDW

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

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

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

Electronic doodads for warriors

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

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

Back to the grind

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



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

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



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

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