Do these idiots not know ANYTHING

of which they speak?
New York Assemblywoman Michelle Schimel, a Democrat and the chief sponsor of the microstamping legislation on semiautomatic pistols that was last considered by the state’s full Senate in 2010, said she believes Remington’s vow is merely a threat.

“Their main product isn’t even semiautomatic guns; the main thrust of what they do are long guns and military contracts,” Schimel told FoxNews.com. “As a former businessman, it would be foolish for them to leave the New York market. They are getting a lot of money from the state.”
Really? All those semi-auto shotguns and rifles people buy with 'Remington' marked on them are actually made by someone else? Schimel, do you not understand that 'long guns' CAN BE SEMI-AUTO FIREARMS? Or do you think that somehow means 'pistols only'?
Oh, wait, they make those 1911A1 pistols, too... Sell a lot from what I've read.

'Foolish' would be staying in a state where the politicians want to put them out of business, dumbass; despite what you think, having a New York address doesn't mean much in comparison to that.

Damndest thing I've ever had a flat from

Took the OKCPV* to the library, started home and noticed the ride seemed a bit spongy; sure as hell, the rear was almost flat. So walked it home, popped the tire & tube off and found two tiny holes maybe 3/8" apart. Made a patch and put the rubber cement on and wondered what had caused them, no sign of anything from the outside; so ran my fingers along the inside and found them barely sticking out(couldn't see a thing from the outside). Took some fine-nose pliers to get hold of them, and looked like two pieces of staple. Not big roofing staples, regular 'attach papers' type. Somehow one hit the tire at just the right angle to push in, and everything but the legs either broke off or wore off and the legs worked their way in.

That trip coming took a lot longer and hotter than going.


*Oklahoma City Pedal Vehicle; Tam's got the SUV tag already

Heart, now

and then

Yeah, their politics kind of suck(Seattle rock band, whoda thought?), but damn, the music they made!

And back when they first came out, and I first heard of them, for the most part I wasn't exactly politically worried about things, 2nd Amendment aside. So if Ann Wilson* had appeared before me and said "I want you! But you should know that someday I'll support the socialists" it would've given me pause for, oh, two or three seconds.

Maybe.

Oh yeah, I had- well, saying "I had a thing for her" would be such an epic of understatement that it would render The Odyssey a piece of fan fiction in comparison.

First of their songs I heard:

And one from a few years later



*No, nothing wrong with Nancy; I just had that thing more for Ann.

Two things about the accusation against Napolitanos' flunky:

First, I have a hard time seeing ICE's special agent in charge in New York making such charges without a way to back them up. Especially it being a male accusing females of sexual misconduct on the job.

Second, The Justice Department is seeking to dismiss Hayes' lawsuit on the basis that he did not state a claim for retaliation. Does anyone have any real doubt that if a female SAIC made such a charge against males that this DoJ would not be playing such a game?


Oh, and I think people aren't buying the spin on the 'You didn't build that' statement.

Yeah, the NYPD shoot training really is that bad

Uncle found this; kind of amazing the number of times 'unscored' and 'not scored' is there(ANY is too many). And this:
Requalification: This included firing 50 rounds at stationary targets at 7-, 15-, and 25-yard distances. A minimum of 39 hits is required to qualify.
Not "A score of -", or "hits in vital/high-score areas", just 39 hits out of 50 on stationary targets with you standing still, yet...

Fear not, they're building a real tactical pistol range; however,
This is surely an improvement over shooting at static targets, but it is not scored, and, because of the scale of operations with so many officers having to requalify twice a year, we are not confident that it will be a much more meaningful training experience than officers currently receive with static targets. For example, without scoring the tactical pistol course, how can the Firearms and Tactics Section evaluate its effectiveness?
Answer: they really can't.

Heck, the civilian who goes to the range once every few months and puts a box or two of ammo through their pistol, along with maybe a little dry fire at home, is doing WAY more than NYPD.
By that standard I'm a frikkin' EXPERT, I am!

And remember, this is from one of the 'most professional, best-trained LE organizations in the country.' No wonder they've had those cases of shooting to slide lock and doing it again, they have no damned idea what they're really doing.*


*A little much? I don't really think so; for instance, OHP was doing better training than this forty years ago.

Still finding stuff left over from WWII

in Germany. Other places too, I imagine

If you've never read Correia's opinion on the classics,

here's a taste:
The one good thing about being forced to read The Great Gatsby was that I discovered Robert E. Howard and H.P. Lovecraft afterwards because I figured that not everybody from that time frame could have been that incredibly annoying.

My sophomore English teacher dismissed those works as “pulp” not “literature”. Really? Because who has influenced more people in succeeding generations? Cthulu or Gatsby? My money is on the big squid.

And I'm sure the base commander caught hell for not assuring applause

and cheers. Let's see,
You condemned Iraq as a sideshow, and then tried to claim credit for winning.
You tried to force the troops to buy private insurance to cover battlefield injuries.
You're negotiating WITH THE FRIGGIN' ENEMY in A'stan to hand the place back to them.
You don't want to actually call some terrorists what they are because it might upset someone.
You want to chop the forces to pieces so you can spend the money on buying votes.
And you, Mr. President, expect these troops to cheer and applaud you? Really?*

On that 'negotiating with the enemy' this from the linked article:
...hopes that the autumn end of this year’s Afghan fighting season will bring the Taliban back to the negotiating table after the suspension of talks last March;...
Translation: they want to let the bastards 'come back to the table' during the winter, which is nothing more than giving them time to rearm and recruit and plan; personally I think that counts as giving aid and comfort to the enemy.

Without going into details, talked to someone a while back about the current budget mess(How 'bout that, Mr. President of the Senate who won't pass any budget, you bastard?) and from what was said, if sequestration happens, they(military) were told that they could say goodbye to any new equipment for about two years(probably minimum), and the forces would be given even bigger personnel cuts. The troops are discouraged and pissed off, the Army's own poll says they're having trouble retaining good leaders and the PC idiocy is hurting the force... and they know damn good and well that when something blows up somewhere, the same people who want to chop numbers/weapons/equipment will- without a second thought or giving a damn about what those things mean- send them off to take care of it. And blame them for everything that goes wrong.



*Yes, I know, considering his ego he probably thinks they'd have to. Or be required to so as to not upset him.

The new edition at Chateau Noisemaker has been tried out,

and it'll fit in nicely:
a Dillon 450 press. Picked it up at the fun show last weekend from a man who'd just bought a 550 and needed the space. Used, and cared for; everything's there, and works nice & smooth. I'll need to start collecting some conversions, and then it'll speed up a lot of loading.

Just in case anyone's wondering, that's a 1/4" steel plate bolted on top of the desk(top reinforced with a brace below). I marked the mounting holes, then drilled and tapped; the mounting bolts thread into the plate instead of going through. Same way I've been using the Square Deal B and the single-stage press; works nicely for mounting the powder measure, too. Having tried this out, I may have to make new holes a little more to the left, but a little rearranging of scale location may take care of it.

A bionic eye to help the blind to have some vision;

this is cool as hell, isn't it?

In fancy words, "Gunwalking? Oh yes,

we did that."


Not Gunwalker related, but the Dutchman has some words on the subject of the CSGV & Co. calling us 'insurrectionists'(from here down is his post):

We are indebted to Robert Farago for the pointing out this tweet from the "Coalition to Stop Gun Violence."

"Smoke out the insurrectionists who dominate the pro-gun movement. And call them what they are: Traitors who r preparing 4 war w/ our gov't."

Of course, I figure prominently in the CSGV list of "insurrectionists" and "traitors."

They really do believe, and have enunciated their beliefs many times, that the federal government should retain a monopoly of violence , thus contradicting the Founders' original intent of the Second Amendment.

Souvenir photo of a German Einsatzgruppen advocate of a government monopoly of violence. The hand-written note on the back of the photo says, "Ukraine 1942, Jewish Aktion, Ivangorod".

As Kurt Hofmann has written, "Forget 'gun control'; CSGV represents 'genocide enablement lobby'." And Kurt has their own words to back it up:

The Coalition to Stop Gun Violence (CSGV) most starkly exemplifies this way of thinking, with their insistence on a "government monopoly on force," which executive director Josh Horwitz claims is "the fundamental organizing principle of any political entity, including the United States." In support of that assertion, Horwitz cites Max Weber, whose Article 48 was absolutely indispensable in Hitler's rise to power. Interesting choice of influences, CSGV.

Blogger Miguel, of Gun Free Zone, recently caught CSGV taking their twisted philosophy to its logical extreme, and tracked this Twitter exchange, in which gun rights advocate LC Scotty asked CSGV if rounding up a minority group for the concentration camps would not justify armed resistance:

So govt rounding up citizens based on relig/ethnic id would not warrant armd resistance if courts bless as constitutional

CSGV's astounding response:

Correct. As long as the Const. is functioning as our system of gov't, there are peaceful methods for redress.

Keep in mind, by the way, that CSGV would have us take the government's word on whether or not it was complying with the Constitution. In other words, according to CSGV, there can never be any justification for armed resistance, as long as the government makes a token effort to toss a flimsy veneer of Constitutional legitimacy over its excesses.

So these are the people who call US "traitors" to the Constitution. They're from another country, all right -- I just can't figure out if it's Nazi Germany or Stalinist Russia.

More advocates of a government monopoly of violence. Warsaw Ghetto, 1943.

End of the his post; he do have a way with words, do he not?



And, last(for now), some words to the UN that they probably wondered what the hell to do about:
BELLEVUE, WA - The Second Amendment Foundation today reminded the United Nations that "if women have the right to be protected against violence, then they have the right to protect themselves against violence."

So spoke SAF's Director of Operations Julianne Versnel, whose remarks to the U.N. Programme of Action conference were unlike anything many delegates had ever heard before(you think maybe?). The conference is seen as the first step toward rekindling discussions about an on-going process to continue development of a small arms and light weapons treaty, which earlier this summer collapsed when several nations opposed it.

Noting that she had reviewed what has already been written and said about the violence against women as it relates to the Programme of Action, Versnel emphasized that, "I am struck by what is not said."

"If there is a basic sanctity of a woman's person," she observed, "if there is a right to not be a victim of sexual or personal violence, then that right involves the right to defend one's self."

Versnel stressed that any new global gun control initiatives must "do nothing to disarm women who legitimately and rightfully want to defend themselves."
Oh yeah, that must've put a weasel in the henhouse: the UN flat hates the idea of the commoners having arms, but they also want to play "We are the Friend of Woman"; how to reconcile "You have no right to use arms for any reason including self-defense" with that?
"The drive for human rights is a force throughout the world," Versnel stated, "and especially here at the U.N. A woman's right to be free from violence is a fundamental human right. That fundamental right is to defend one's self. The report of this conference should state that without reservation."
Fat effing chance. If women have not only the right of self-defense, but the right to the means to do it, why, they don't need the UN to 'protect' them!

The Navy's possibly biggest threat in the Persian Gulf

has been both missiles and swarming speedboats; some things have been developed that would really help with the boat threat, but
As always, though, money is an issue. Two JLENS systems have been built, but it is not certain that production will go ahead as originally planned. Meanwhile a Senate panel has recommended slowing production of the SDB II as Congress tries to slash the budget.
I said somewhere that if the Navy was gaming this threat, I hoped they were being honest as I really don't want another Battle of Savo Island; if there's a replay of it because Congress was too busy chopping defense because it's easier than doing other things... well, tar & feathers would have to give way to ropes and lampposts.

Yesterday it was the garage: today

it is the shed. Which is about halfway done, the rest will be done later in the day when it cools a bit. In the meantime,
Yahoo fired a journalist who made a really disgusting comment on a hot mike.
"They're not concerned at all. They're happy to have a party with black people drowning," Chalian said over a break during the ABC News/Yahoo News webcast, in reference to the fact that the GOP convention in Tampa is taking place as Hurricane Isaac makes landfall on the north Gulf coast.
Apparently Obama campaigning and fundraising at the same time doesn't bother him.


In a followon to the NYPD shooting the other day, somebody had a link to this; if the information presented is correct, it's- well, 'terrifying' comes to mind. Part of it:
•The qualifications are HORRIBLE mad get dumbed down every year.
•The NYPD offers once a month training for members to use, on their own time. However, all that is done during these sessions are the same basic dumbed down qualification exercises. You will only receive real help if you outright fail. Missed 12 out of fifty @ 7 yards? GOOD ENOUGH!
•Our tactical training is a joke and maybe ten people in a department of 34K have had Active Shooter training (I'm not exaggerating).


Insty linked to this:
It turned out waiting periods didn't matter. They didn't work, had no impact on crime, they were a distraction. They were just an attack that could be made on guns, the flavor of the day, a reflection of what the public out here perceives as media hatred for guns. Like a reported shooting... from two thousand miles away.
...
Now I find you urging support to ban gear, like magazine size, ammunition types and even brands, like AR-15 and Glock. This is just as bogus as the olden waiting-period demands, and you are just as mystified at the adamantine resistance again. This is why it is time for gun-control counseling.


The other day someone basically said 'academics do not use their authority to push political views.' He hadn't heard about this, I guess(or Obama's terrorist neighbor & friend, or- well, you know):
...A senior English professor invited his colleagues to open their classrooms in the weeks ahead to organizers in the Obama campaign. They would first encourage students to register to vote and then, if the instructors were willing, encourage students to volunteer for the Obama campaign.


And now I shall soak up some tea and prepare for finishing the shed

The Gun is Civilization

Every so often I remember this piece; it's something that needs to go around every once in a while.

The Gun is Civilization by The Munchkin Wrangler

Human beings only have two ways to deal with one another: reason and force. If you want me to do something for you, you have a choice of either convincing me via argument, or force me to do your bidding under threat of force. Every human interaction falls into one of those two categories, without exception. Reason or force, that’s it.

In a truly moral and civilized society, people exclusively interact through persuasion. Force has no place as a valid method of social interaction, and the only thing that removes force from the menu is the personal firearm, as paradoxical as it may sound to some.

When I carry a gun, you cannot deal with me by force. You have to use reason and try to persuade me, because I have a way to negate your threat or employment of force.

The gun is the only personal weapon that puts a 100-pound woman on equal footing with a 220-pound mugger, a 75-year old retiree on equal footing with a 19-year old gang banger, and a single guy on equal footing with a carload of drunk guys with baseball bats. The gun removes the disparity in physical strength, size, or numbers between a potential attacker and a defender.

There are plenty of people who consider the gun as the source of bad force equations. These are the people who think that we’d be more civilized if all guns were removed from society, because a firearm makes it easier for a [armed] mugger to do his job. That, of course, is only true if the mugger’s potential victims are mostly disarmed either by choice or by legislative fiat–it has no validity when most of a mugger’s potential marks are armed.

People who argue for the banning of arms ask for automatic rule by the young, the strong, and the many, and that’s the exact opposite of a civilized society. A mugger, even an armed one, can only make a successful living in a society where the state has granted him a force monopoly.

Then there’s the argument that the gun makes confrontations lethal that otherwise would only result in injury. This argument is fallacious in several ways. Without guns involved, confrontations are won by the physically superior party inflicting overwhelming injury on the loser. People who think that fists, bats, sticks, or stones don’t constitute lethal force watch too much TV, where people take beatings and come out of it with a bloody lip at worst. The fact that the gun makes lethal force easier works solely in favor of the weaker defender, not the stronger attacker. If both are armed, the field is level.

The gun is the only weapon that’s as lethal in the hands of an octogenarian as it is in the hands of a weight lifter. It simply wouldn’t work as well as a force equalizer if it wasn’t both lethal and easily employable.

When I carry a gun, I don’t do so because I am looking for a fight, but because I’m looking to be left alone. The gun at my side means that I cannot be forced, only persuaded. I don’t carry it because I’m afraid, but because it enables me to be unafraid. It doesn’t limit the actions of those who would interact with me through reason, only the actions of those who would do so by force. It removes force from the equation… and that’s why carrying a gun is a civilized act.

To also borrow from Mr. Volk:

Screw the TSA; it should be dumped

Any bunch of clowns who use their power to try to intimidate people into being good little sheep should be fired.

If you don't have a copy of the Army Survival Manual,

the gentleman at Q&O has a link(pdf file)

Well, this would explain a number of people I've known

Researchers found persistent users of the drug, who started smoking it at school, had lower IQ scores as adults.

They were also significantly more likely to have attention and memory problems in later life, than their peers who abstained.

A blog on open-bolt firearms

Commenter gave me this link: Open Bolt Semi Auto Firearms.

Seems some actual indigenous people are getting upset

with islam being pushed.
Native Americans are very angry to learn that Muslims in the United States of America are being touted as “indigenous”, a complete falsehood. The fact is, American Indians are the indigenous people of North America, as Hawai’ians are to Hawai’i and the Aborigine to Australia. Organizations like BIMA marginalize native Americans in favor of Muslims, and Indians are not pleased. Speaking with many tribal friends and associates here in northeast Oklahoma, it is clear that the support Obama received from native American Democrats in 2008 is waning. They can see that the hope and change Obama promised four years ago was not what anyone expected. Especially not these people, with their deep Christian beliefs and rolls filled with veterans of foreign wars.

Is it something about New Orleans?

And if it is, should we just build the refineries and whatnot somewhere that it doesn't affect the morons running the city?

Yep; at least one of the NYEffinPD cops can't shoot

for shit under stress, it follows an old tradition, and-sure enough- cops who can't shoot for shit means we need(say it in chorus!) MORE GUN CONTROL LAWS!!!

It's an ongoing complaint by gunnies that so many cops are lousy shots, and I think Uncle hits a big part of it: in so many places they've tried so hard to destroy the gun culture, and- to a large extent- succeeded, especially among those who really SHOULD be part of said culture. When you've got cops who only shoot when required to, and only care about managing to qualify, you get people who can't shoot well. And, as the saying goes, under heavy stress you don't rise to the occasion, you fall to your level of training. So if your level of training is "I have to shoot twice a year to qualify"...

Guy Dad used to work with was the poster boy for this. Very nice guy, knew the law, knew his job, but didn't care for shooting, so he didn't. My first real "I don't believe this!" on cops and guns was when he brought his shotgun over for help: they'd qualified about two months before, and there was an inspection coming up, and he could manage to clean his revolver but couldn't remember how to break down the scattergun, and didn't even have a rod for cleaning the bore. So that powder and plastic fouling(lots of buckshot and slugs) had been sitting there solidifying its position for two freakin' months. And would have been there longer if not for the inspection.

See, the cops I was around as I grew up were either country boys or city boys who liked to shoot and/or hunt; they actually practiced on their own when they could, and knew how to take care of their weapons. So when I started meeting those who not only didn't like to shoot, but didn't bother, even though a lot of them were people who were often a looong way from help if things went south... well, it was a shock. And there are a lot more of them than there used to be.

Why does this not surprise me about the Occupy clowns

& Co.?
Now they had meetings for a long time before and what they ultimately decided to do—and it was folks like Lisa Fithian leading the training, and I know because I was in the training…undercover —but what they did is they mapped out the city, maps with corporate targets, business leaders home addresses, and Republican delegates home addresses, and also where the hotels were the delegates were going to be staying in. And they handed out these maps and then they showed people videos of Molotov cocktails and various other criminal behavior and asked everyone to be creative and feel free to use what they called a diversity of tactics and to make sure the Republican National Convention can’t occur, you know, can’t happen.

In a later planning session they mapped out the area around the convention center; they divided it into several sections. Then each group of anarchists of their RNC Welcoming Committee—which we now call Occupy—each group was responsible for a different sector.
...
Now, Lisa Fithian and the organizers, they realized that the police were not going to allow a group to set up and do that, allow the yellow group to do that. So they figured they could use the green group, the green group being the mainstream liberal and Democratic protesters who would never violate the law intentionally. So the organizers would manipulate the green group to get into the street and protest. The green group’s not realizing that they’re being used to cover illegal behavior that’s interfering with the rights of other Americans to assemble. And then when the police told the green group to get out they would slow the green group down and try to keep them from getting out of the road. Well eventually the green group would get out of the road. And if that didn’t give the yellow group enough time to finish locking down across the road, then the red group—which are the black mask wearing anarchists would come in—and the red group would actually begin to attack police.
...
So the buses that did get through when they were held up by the yellow group, then the red group would come back and the red group threw bricks and flagstones through the windows, they slashed the tires of the buses, they threw bleach and urine in the delegates faces and they attacked the buses and the people on the buses. And that’s what they’re going to do this time.
And, chances are the major media will ignore/cover up/lie about it, and the Evil Party bigshots will scream about the cops and Stupid Party trying to 'shut down people speaking their minds', etc.

This has the potential to get real bad, real ugly, and real bloody.

According to the weather service, last night brought

almost 2" of rain. I'd rather have had it spread out over all day of light, but I'll take it. Especially since there's a couple of cracks across my yard that look like the aftermath of a earthquake.


Noting this mostly because it'll be handy for annoying the right people: yes, Woody Guthrie was a commie.


Democrats Protect Child Rapists; considering there's six Obama Truth Team clowns who voted against stronger penalties, that's more accurate than screaming "REPUBLICAN WAR ON WOMEN!!!" because of the idiot statement from Akin


Never forget: just because it's been in a zoo does not mean the big kitty is a housecat.


Take a look at this, and see if you can figure it all out: was it cartel shooters or Mexican authorities who damn near killed them?

And Borepatch is right: this should never be allowed to slip away:
R.I.P. Vicki Weaver, shot down by the FBI twenty years ago today. If Lon Horiuchi had been a better shot, he might have got her and her baby at the same time. That would have been a twofer, or something. Wonder if that gets you promoted to Special Agent.

And this is another opportunity to remind everyone that not only does Lon Horiuchi walk the land as a free man, but that he gets corporate endorsements.



Dammit; as Owens notes, even if I had the money I couldn't buy one(thanks to gun-bigot politicians) but oh, I want one