Dammit, another couple of places to keep track of

A comment on the butthead reporter led to Plains Feeder, which led to People You'll See In Hell.

Warning: looking at the latter may cause side effects on the order of breaking things, boosted blood pressure and acknowledging what that comedian said some years back: "Some people just look better dead."

'Reporter and accomplice hoisted on own petard:

complains of great discomfort. Updated!

Thanks to Unix-Jedi who pointed Kevin to the previous article, we find this:
Reporter goes to another state with accomplice and intent to violate federal firearms law.
Reporter and accomplice violate law.
Reporter brags about it in column, brags about offending 'loony gun lobby'.
Reporter and accomplice get visit from ATF.
Reporter now whining This is how it works. Intimidation is the stock in trade of the National Rifle Association and all the NRA knock-offs out there. Dare to say we need fewer, not more guns in this country, dare to say we need a uniform system for monitoring gun sales in this country and you become a target to be hunted down. Democrats and Republicans have allowed themselves to be cowed by this one-issue bloc for too long.

Boo-freakin'-hoo, jackass. You deliberately broke the law, bragged about it, and now you're getting the treatment that's been given to lots of gun owners who made an honest mistake. Except, you being in the media, are being treated a lot nicer by ATF.

Update
Uncle has more, and it appears reporter is either lying now, or was lying then, and may be going through a bit of major pucker-factor ass-covering.

And our friend who escaped from MA has a look at the skewed method of looking at numbers this clown uses

"...as illegal as firing a sub-machine gun"

No, not shooting somebody. Bloody pepper spray. In Formerly-Great Britain.

Under the Firearms Act, it is ranked alongside rocket launchers in that using it carries a 10-year prison sentence.

This is what happens when God-cursed socialist nanny-state politicians and their little 'progressive' buttmonkeys get do decide your life. And the Brady/Violence Policy Center/Gun-Ban At Any Cost clowns here want things to be just the same.

At times I think I may have to stop reading Kevin; he's bad for my blood pressure.

Well, they're back to their bases

Put son & new daughter-in-law on their respective planes yesterday. Son had the much longer flight, getting there this morning; DIL was back just a few hours after leaving.

Kind of odd being a father-in-law. And I like her, so can't be too obnoxious about things(she married him, that ought to be punishment enough for a few decades).

In any case, back to long-distance contact as son will be going to a hot & sandy place in a month.

Yeah, government-run health care will work

just as well as the tax system.
A missing property tax bill for $1.63 has given Kermit and Dolores Atwood "seven years of emotional hell" in a fight to keep their home.

The bill was sent to a defunct address in 1996 and returned undelivered to the St. Tammany Parish sheriff's office. The Atwoods weren't looking for it since they had owned the four-bedroom house mortgage-free since 1968 and had been exempt from the state tax.

Which does bring up the question of, since their home was exempt, why was any bill sent? And why no further attempt? Of course, that would be calling into question the efficiency of the agency involved...

Instead, the Atwoods' home was sold at a sheriff's auction in 1997 to American Land Investments because of the delinquent bill. The couple have won several court challenges since then and hope to withstand one more appeal over the property.

The State Tax Commission eventually nullified the 1997 sale, but when the Atwoods tried to sell the house in 2002, they discovered that American Land Investments had sold the property rights to Jamie Land Co., which then sued the Atwoods.

James A. Lindsay II, the company's president, said his rights were violated when the tax commission didn't inform him of its decision.

And so on.

This kind of crap happens fairly regularly. And how many cases have been noted where the IRS made an error and screwed someone's life over? How many people have been advised to 'pay whatever they demand, because you'll go broke fighting it'?

Yeah, government-run health care will be just wonderful!

Ammo testing

James had a post a few days back on one of his 'working guns', a Star Super B. Specific note is made that this pistol "...won't feed any hollowpoint ammo at all, or at least any that I have bothered to try."

This is something I(and just about every other gunblogger) has stressed before: NEVER trust ammo for self-defense that you have not fired through your sidearm! Revolvers are much simpler here, as they'll generally digest damn near anything without problem, but a lot of semi-auto pistols can be downright finicky about what they'll digest.

I wrote a while back about trying out a Star BM (if that link doesn't work, try here and here)9mm. That little pistol was fired with CCI Blazer ball, some other brand of ball, two different bullet weights in Gold Dot hollowpoints, Remington hollowpoints and some Winchester hollowpoints as I recall and it ate all of them without a bobble; excellent performance from that beast. I've also fired some high-grade semi-autos that flat would NOT reliably cycle some particular brand of ammo. No reason we could figure, it just wouldn't.

My carry piece is a Kimber Compact, their version of the Officer's Model 1911. The only thing I've fired that it wouldn't feed well was some semi-wadcutter target ammo(a common problem for almost all 1911 pistols that don't have a barrel throated for this bullet). But I've read of other people whose Kimber was very damn picky about what it would work with.

What makes really testing ammo properly a problem is the price that premium self-defense ammo sells for (especially now); for instance, last time I looked Federal Hydra-Shok in .45acp was selling for $15-16. For a box of twenty. That kind of cost really hurts a lot of people. But the plain fact is you cannot short on this: you HAVE to shoot enough of the stuff you choose to make sure it will function reliably in your gun. No ifs, ands or buts.

And here's another kick in the ass for Murtha

Only metaphorically, unfortunately.
Yet another Marine has won a court victory in the investigation of the battle at Haditha – adding more doubts to the claims of a massacre. In this case, the officer conducting an Article 32 hearing (equivalent to a grand jury hearing in civilian courts) has ruled that charges should be dropped. In essence, the claims of a massacre at Haditha are now looking false.

There has GOT to be some kind of payback to both the bastards like Murtha in Congress and the equally disgusting bastards in the media who went way, WAY out of their way to railroad these Marines.

"Don't give them what they want"

Damn good information from Anarchangel

One of my favorite fictional characters(mentioned previously) is Matt Helm. A time or two he explained his actions- on and off-duty- very simply: "If someone opens the door to violence, they've got no room to complain if more than they were expecting walks through". Which pretty much matches with what Chris puts forth: if you have to act, do not stop until the fight is over. No matter what it takes.

Remember the recent Righteous Shooting report from Kim about the old man in the fast-food place? The article(link not good anymore) noted that the reformed criminal deceased dirtbag was upset the man wouldn't comply with an order to pick up his wallet and was trying to force him into the ladies room; the man knew what that meant and acted.

So according to these idiots our troops are both murderers

and can't shoot. So how come so many of the bad guys have assumed ambient temperature?

Now, I know you're thinking the same as Sebastian, "Haven't these clowns heard of 'training'?" But of course! In the original article we have this note on that concept:
Pointing out that officials say many of these bullets have been used for training purposes, he said: "What are you training for? To kill insurgents."

So ammo expended in training is the same as that actually used in combat, and our troops aren't very good shots, the Israel is controlling everything... And thus we end this episode of 'Lifestyles of the Ignorant and Bigoted'.

(Damn those eeville JOOOS; they're responsible for EVERYTHING, aren't they?)

'Cheap Red-Dot Dies:

Surprise expressed by none'

About a year ago I picked up one of the on-sale cheap 30mm red-dots Sportsman's Guide was selling, just to try out on the M1 Carbine with the forward mount I'd put together. Worked really well.

Well, I went to the range today and first fired a couple of rounds at 50 yards just to check zero; about 2" high I thought, but centered on windage. So I moved the target to 100 and fired three. None of which even came close to the paper. Fired a shot at a clay pigeon on the backstop and saw dust jump about three bloody feet low. Not good.

Just to see if it could be adjusted I wasted about 20 rounds on it. Not only would it not hold zero, the adjustments would work and then not work. POI kept shifting all over the bloody place, by feet from one shot to the next, although one time it did put two damn close on the target, then went off to God-knows-where again.

I pulled the sight and fired a group with the iron sights, and it was hitting exactly where it should(as I'd expected), so I'll take the battery out of the sight and trash it*.

Considering the thing cost the grand total of $20, a year on the carbine isn't bad. So down the road a bit(bills right now, you know) I'll find a better-quality sight for it.

Oh, the $15 red-dot I stuck on the .22 pistol? It's still working fine; I'm guessing the greater recoil of the rifle had a definite part in this.

By the way, is there a rule somewhere that if you go to the range on a hot day that the wind will disappear the moment you set up? If I hadn't gotten there early I'd not have made it long, and even drinking like a camel after the road trip I damn near overheated.


*Yes, I HAVE to trash it, otherwise I'll keep fooling with the damn thing.

Yeah, that handgun ban and 'easy on the crooks'

is really working well:
Violent crime and muggings have risen sharply in the past 12 months, despite Government pledges to crack down on the problem and increase the number of front line police officers, figures will show this week. In some rural areas, robbery offences have risen by almost 25 per cent while crimes of violence against the person have risen by almost a fifth.

They also note "The figures are expected to show that sex attacks fell by eight per cent and domestic burglary by three per cent, leading to an overall fall in crime by three per cent.", but I have to wonder if that's actually true; as The Englishman notes, "And anecdotally the rate of non reporting of crime is rising even faster, there is just no bloody point unless you need a crime number for an insurance claim," which ties in with some articles not long ago about how the crime numbers were being figured in ways that cut down on the totals.

They're also on the 'knife amnesty' kick("Bad knife! No whetstone for you! Now toddle off to bed without your oil!"), which hasn't exactly been a roaring success:
A report from the centre for crime and justice studies at King's College London accused the Government of presiding over an incoherent strategy to tackle the problem. It was also sceptical about the merits of amnesties. Although the last one produced 90,000 knives, that represented just 0.0041 per cent of the total available.

This kind of action never works, but that hasn't stopped the magical-thinking clowns over here from wanting to do the same:
“We’re going to have to take this one step at a time, and the first step is necessarily - given the political realities - going to be very modest. Right now, though, we’d be satisfied not with half a loaf but with a slice. Our ultimate goal - total control of all guns - is going to take time…..The final problem is to make the possession of all handguns and all handgun ammunition - except for the military, policemen, licensed security guards, licensed sporting clubs and licensed gun collectors - totally illegal.”

Because it's not really about crime control: it's about control.

The good side of the recent rains

was the lower-than-usual temps for this time of year and things being greener(though a few inches less of the wet stuff would have been just fine). The downsides include:
Now that temps are up at average, the humidity is bloody awful. It feels like the damn mosquitoes could almost lay eggs in the air.
Since it's about the only thing that usually bothers me, it must be the mold that's way, way up.
And it dews so heavy the grass doesn't dry out until afternoon. When it's hottest.

I just finished mowing about an hour ago. If I'd waited until it was mostly dry it'd have been evening, and I plan on taking son & wife to dinner. So another session of 'mow a strip, beat the caked grass out, repeat' was done. Only this time it was hot and humid enough I lost buckets of sweat- which in this humidity won't evaporate as you go- and, courtesy of the mold, had to keep blowing my nose to keep it from running down my face. Yuck, to say the least.

Going by past experience, if no rain for about a week things should dry enough to get back to 'normal' humidity for this month. Which means hot, but not 'drown in your own sweat' conditions.

Ah, normalcy.