Monday, May 07, 2007

One other thing about the Taurus titanium revolvers

Can't speak for the snubnoses, but on the 4" I've fired, that ribbed rubber grip does a very nice job of soaking up recoil. Within reason.

'Within reason' depending on the cartridge. .45acp, no problem, but...

First time I fired one was basically the same pistol in .41 Magnum. Now, I flat love that cartridge, and as previously mentioned I'm on the lookout for a Model 57 I can afford. And I'm not particularly recoil sensitive. But when I touched off a .41 Mag round in that thing, it kicked the crap out of me. I finished the cylinder, and have no desire to repeat the experience. As something with serious power that you'd carry a lot and shoot little, ok, but when something's that painful to practice with, I don't like. A very well-made gun, but way too light for that cartridge.

"It's globalur worner- Climate Change, that's what it is!"

Last year was dry, drought conditions over this state and parts of surrounding states, and we heard lots of "Is global warming causing the drought, and what comes next?" crap from some sources(big surprise, right?).

Well, from dry last year to damn wet this one. Along with the rain and storms of the previous few months, and the snow and sleet and freezing rain in winter, it's not only raining now(well over 2.6 inches in the last six hours) but something like 50% probability over the next few days.

I haven't heard it yet- probably becuase I don't go looking for this crap- but I have no doubt that someone already is talking about 'changing weather patterns due to globalar warmening'. Which is flat amazing, because they apparently cannot be bothered to remember their own life or look at the records. Cycles like this have always happened, long before any human activity could have affected it, and always will. Dry years, wet years, average years, all working their way through with no concern for our notice of them. For us at all.

Oh well, it'll make them so happy to point at it and squeal.

Sunday, May 06, 2007

More on the death of Kathryn Johnston

Demonstrating that the 'say anything to get a warrant, etc.' mess was indeed an ongoing problem, Balko has this:
The 80-year-old Thompson was in her bedroom the afternoon of Sept. 20, when she heard a terrible crash and shouting. Startled and confused, she grabbed a pistol and was immediately confronted by three Atlanta narcotics officers.

"They had masks covering their face. I thought I was being robbed," she recalled. "They pointed those big guns at me."

...
The two incidents share striking similarities: Two elderly women living alone with guns; police battering in a door; faulty reports from street-level dealers helping narcotics officers; and police parsing the truth, if not outright lying.

And take note of this:
The team did not have a no-knock warrant as they did in the Johnston case. But narcotics agents are allowed to quickly batter in a door if they hear the residents scurrying around, presumably hiding drugs, or if they hear nothing. The team that day heard nothing, the police report said.
Got that? If they hear you 'scurrying around', they can kick in the door; and if they DON'T hear anything, they can kick in the door. Just freakin' unbelievable.

He notes that the judges who've been in the habit of signing these warrants, often under conditions that should have told anyone with three working brain cells that something was wrong, need to be dealt with also. However,
Fulton magistrates don't plan on making any policy changes, said Stefani Searcy, court administrator for Fulton County State and Magistrate courts.

"I'm sure the judges, not just here but across the state, are concerned about whether officers are telling the truth," Searcy said. "It's a problem that has to be handled internally by the police department."

"Because we clowns in black robes have NO responsibility in this, no sir, none at all!"

Of course the Empire In Decline is the U.S.

in this article. I admit that I'm seriously suspicious of anything coming from someone who writes things like "An imperium in its death throes can be a nasty beast; I am by the same token nervous that the American empire may lurch dangerously around for decades to come.", but I will say his idea is interesting. I don't think it'll work, for the simple reason that 'containing' radical islam is just a touch different than the Soviet Union.

Pretty good article on th 2nd Additional

in, of all places, the New York Times.
There used to be an almost complete scholarly and judicial consensus that the Second Amendment protects only a collective right of the states to maintain militias. That consensus no longer exists — thanks largely to the work over the last 20 years of several leading liberal law professors, who have come to embrace the view that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to own guns.

Considering it was 'liberal' politicians and law professors who gave us the 'collective right' crap, it only seems fair that some of them realize the truth and speak about it.

I've always been amazed at how, in a document specifically noting individual rights, the rights of free people, that these people could argue with a straight face that the 2nd was only a 'collective' right.

The earlier consensus, the law professors said in interviews, reflected received wisdom and political preferences rather than a serious consideration of the amendment’s text, history and place in the structure of the Constitution. “The standard liberal position,” Professor Levinson said, “is that the Second Amendment is basically just read out of the Constitution.”

No kidding?

But(of course), those 'individual' rights people don't really believe it:Scholars who agree with gun opponents and support the collective rights view say the professors on the other side may have been motivated more by a desire to be provocative than by simple intellectual honesty.
Just like if you don't agree with the 'concensus truth' on globular wormering you're either a Gaia-hating troglodyte or just trying to cause problems. 'Course, though, this is coming from people who on one hand say a criminal caught in the act has more legal protections than you do, but on the 2nd say things like this:
“The Second Amendment doesn’t guarantee the right to have firearms at all,” Mr. Burger said in a speech. In a 1991 interview, Mr. Burger called the individual rights view “one of the greatest pieces of fraud — I repeat the word ‘fraud’ — on the American public by special interest groups that I have ever seen in my lifetime.”

Take careful note of that last; it came from a former Chief Justice of SCOTUS. Considering we've had idiots like this on that Court, it's amazine there's anything left of the Constitution at all other than their approved form of the 'living document'.

And I just love this:
“It’s truly a life-or-death question for us,” she said. “It’s not theoretical. We all remember very well when D.C. had the highest murder rate in the country, and we won’t go back there.” Uh, you might take a moment to consider that one factor in that still horrible crime rate is that idiots like you disarmed honest people.

Found over at Instapundit.

Additional:
Two pieces noting that it wasn't 'liberal professors' who did all the work on this subject. Not even close. At Volokh and Balkin.

Saturday, May 05, 2007

Almost always happens somewhere this time of year

Anniversaries of disasters always bring bad stuff back to mind. The edge dulls over time, and the stresses of the mix of fear/anger/fight-or-flight/amazement/wonder don't strike as hard as before.

May 3rd was the eighth anniversary of the 1999 F5 tornado that travelled through, smashing everything in its path and killing anyone who couldn't get out of the way and wasn't under enough shelter. Wrote about it a couple of years ago, with some of the specifics. A mile wide on the ground at its greatest strength, one of those natural forces that demonstrates every so often just how small our efforts generally are in comparison.

What a lot of people don't realize is what an outbreak happened that day. Something like seventy tornados were noted by either radar indications or ground reports. As I recall, there was one they think was another F5, but that one had a much shorter path and was out in the boonies, doing very little damage.

Thanks to lots of warning(the weather weenies here are pretty good at tornados and severe thunderstorms) from radar, stormchasers and- soon as they could get into the air- choppers tailing it, the death count was far smaller than it could have been. A similar strength storm
hit the town of Woodward(and other places) on April 9, 1947. From the NWS records:
The tornado that would strike Woodward began near Canadian, TX. Moving northeast, it continued on the ground continuously for about 100 miles, ending in Woods County, Oklahoma, west of Alva. The tornado was massive, up to 1.8 miles wide, and traveled at forward speeds of about 50 miles per hour. It first struck Glazier and Higgins in the Texas Panhandle, devastating both towns and producing at least 69 fatalities in Texas before crossing into Oklahoma. In Ellis County, Oklahoma, the tornado did not strike any towns, passing to the southeast of Shattuck, Gage, and Fargo. Even though no towns were struck, nearly 60 farms and ranches were destroyed and 8 people were killed with 42 more injured. Moving into Woodward County, one death was reported near Tangier.

The violent tornado (F5 on the Fujita Scale) unleashed its worst destruction on Woodward, striking the city without warning at 8:42 pm. Over 100 city blocks on the west and north sides of the city were destroyed with lesser damage in the southeast portion of the town. Confusion and fires reigned in the aftermath with over 1000 homes and businesses destroyed, at least 107 people killed in and around Woodward, and nearly 1000 additional injuries.

No radar to warn, no local meteorologists familiar with the history and terrain of the area. Something like that hitting the same path as the May 3rd storm would have killed hundreds. As it is, the damn things can form and drop so fast that even with Doppler radar and all the other fancies, they can surprise everyone.

Greensburg, KS took the hit this time. Some dead, a lot more injured, and much of the town destroyed. I say 'some dead' because they won't have a final count for days, most likely; takes time to search through a mess like that. And, just to add to the joy, NWS says:
A SIGNIFICANT SEVERE WEATHER OUTBREAK...INCLUDING THE POSSIBILITY
OF LONG-TRACK AND VIOLENT TORNADOES...ARE EXPECTED OVER PARTS OF THE
CENTRAL PLAINS THIS AFTERNOON AND TONIGHT...

THE NWS STORM PREDICTION CENTER IN NORMAN OK IS FORECASTING THE
DEVELOPMENT OF A SIGNIFICANT SEVERE WEATHER OUTBREAK OVER PARTS OF
THE CENTRAL PLAINS THIS AFTERNOON AND TONIGHT.

THE AREAS MOST LIKELY TO EXPERIENCE THIS ACTIVITY INCLUDE

CENTRAL KANSAS
CENTRAL NEBRASKA

SURROUNDING THE HIGH RISK AREA...THERE IS ALSO A POTENTIAL FOR VERY
LARGE HAIL...DAMAGING WINDS AND STRONG TORNADOES FROM SOUTHERN SOUTH
DAKOTA SOUTHWARD INTO WESTERN OKLAHOMA AND THE EXTREME EASTERN TEXAS
PANHANDLE.
Not going to be a good night for a whole lot of people.

Taurus Total Titanium Tracker

in .45acp













I posted on this revolver once before, but since I had a chance to shoot one of these the other day, and I think it's a fine piece, decided to show it again.

It's about identical in outside dimensions to a K-frame S&W revolver, with the frame, barrel and cylinder being forged of titanium. The barrel and each chamber has a stainless steel liner(to take the pressure and hold rifling), and the lockwork is steel. The combination gives a revolver holding five rounds of .45acp that weighs the grand total of about 1.5 pounds. The steel versions have a vented barrel, and I believe some of the titanium models in other cartridges are vented also.

Since it fires a rimless cartridge it uses a steel moon clip to hold five rounds. Five instead of six means the cylinder can be that much smaller in diameter, which means a smaller frame, so smaller AND lighter for easy carry. These clips are not as heavy and stiff as those used in some other revolvers, so for fast reloads I'd think something like a speedloader carrier to set them into.

The grip is a ribbed, soft rubber that both fits to your hand very well and does a good job of soaking up recoil, the latter being a Good Thing in a pistol this light. Sights are fixed.

The action on those I've fired have all been very smooth with a light, clean single-action pull. Double was a bit heavy; I'd imagine it would lighten up much like a S&W revolver, though you'd have to make damn sure you didn't scratch the titanium surfaces inside.

I'm told they don't make this model any longer, which is a pity. It's light, well made, of a size that will fit a lot of hands, in a serious cartridge, and quite accurate. For something to carry on hikes, or as a concealed-carry piece it would work nicely.

Friday, May 04, 2007

I think it started when 'Band of Brothers' came out,

it got worse when CMP announced they had Carbines, and now that they're taking orders it's worse.

In this case, I'm speaking of the prices for Carbine parts. Just for the hell of it I went over to Evilbay and searched 'M1 Carbine', and while some things are reasonable, DAMN!, some things are flat amazing.

The clowns in Congress aren't helping, either, since every time someone like Schumer opens his mouth and starts talking, people decide to get spares or stock up. Which isn't helping the ammo situation, either.

By the way, something I found that may be handy for others with those short little rifles:
The chargers for Carbine magazines come in two forms, the early with the magazine adapter attached and the later with a separate adapter. If you've got some, you know that after a few uses the little brass tab on the end- that keeps the cartridges from getting out until you push- breaks off. I found that the brass insert from AR15/M16 chargers is a little longer, and just a touch wider. You can trim just a tiny strip off the sides with scissors, shape a new tab(I use my dremel) on one end, and it'll replace the brass insert in the Carbine charger.

Dammit, I can't make the Shoot

Been looking forward to the Nation of Riflemen Shoot down in Dallas since Kim announced it. But it's official, I ain't gonna be there. Things at work are FUBAR, and- barring a miracle- I can't get the days for it.

I wish I believed in lotteries, I'd walk to the store and buy tickets.

Thursday, May 03, 2007

Oh yeah, the Left just loves free speech

as long as nothing is said they don't like. Such as information about the Goreacle that upsets them.
Shortly after the story made headlines, popular liberal blogs Daily Kos and Huffington Post, laid out their plan of attack. A blogger called NeuvoLiberal wrote on Daily Kos, "please post any specific (action oriented) ideas you have for fighting back…. We'd like to target every person out there that is spinning in various rightwing and other outlet for this kind of smear job (the damage is done before you wake and smell the coffee)."

Over at Huffington Post, bloggers Dave Johnson and James Boyce issued another call to action: "Al Gore is a hero. Even heroes need help - join us, add to the comments, let's find out everything we can about these guys and stop them in their tracks. Now."


Got that? Say something that makes their 'hero' look bad, and they want you shut up. 'Course, if you've followed damn near any story that touched on their prickly little sense of "You fascists don't get to criticize us without being destroyed", you already knew that. This is just another example if it.

Vegans are freakin' insane

That's a blanket statement, based on the few I've met. Known some vegetarians, some of them are nuts, but just about everyone I've ever met who was vegan was also a socialist(or socialist-leaning at the least) nanny-state type. Through Sondra, found this piece of idiocy:
Jade Sanders, 27, and Lamont Thomas, 31, will get an automatic life sentence for the death of their 6-week-old infant, Crown. After being fed a diet largely consisting of soy milk and apple juice, he weighed only 3 1/2 pounds when he died.

Nothing but soy milk and apple juice. For a newborn.

Attorneys representing Sanders and Thomas told jurors the first-time parents did the best they could while adhering to their vegan lifestyle.
...
The couple's attorneys said they didn't realize their baby, born at home, was in danger until minutes before he died.

Bull-SHIT they 'didn't realize the baby was in danger'. When you feed a baby only that, and it KEEPS LOSING WEIGHT, the baby is STARVING TO DEATH. And when there are soy-based formulas available, there is no excuse- period- for this garbage.

And I'll tell you something else: if the baby needs formula(and unless there was a medical reason not to, why weren't they breast-feeding?) and the only formula that worked had some banned-by-vegans ingredient, you give it to the baby anyway. Because that baby's life if MORE IMPORTANT THAN YOUR GOD-CURSED DIETARY PURITY.

If it weren't so early, I'd need a drink.

Wednesday, May 02, 2007

Rosie O'Donnell has been called an idiot,

but I don't think that quite fits. I think she's a malicious, vile, disgusting example of a human being who may actually be too stupid to understand the implications of what she says.

Or maybe Raging Dave is more accurate in his description.

On top of that we have that sorry, worthless excuse for a man Senator Reid(Traitor-NV) and his buttmonkey Pelosi(Tyrant's asskisser-CA) who are quite willing to betray their country for political advantage. Which, from some stuff Michelle Malkin dug up, is almost certainly connected to this crap. As one guy says here,
Saw your article on the crackdown. Although it's speculation on my part, I think my own vet background provides me enough experience to make the determination that the reasons for this are the armed forces member responses to Harry Reid's comments and anything said or done by other elected Dems. I'm sure after receiving a slew of criticism that was identified as originating from any service man or woman, they contacted DoD and angrily issued complaints.

Undoubtedly true. These are some of the pimples on the ass of humanity who did everything they could in the 2000 election to have troops' absentee ballots thrown out; would it surprise anyone to find they went bitching to the politicians and lawyers in uniform because some of those peasants in the military service dared to criticize the Holy Democrats?

I didn't think so.

Like the Emperor says, "Lamppost, rope politician: some assembly required".