Saturday, March 03, 2018

“Peace Officers” vs. “Law Enforcement Officers”

Oh yes.  Go read this, preferably now.  And pay real attention to this:
A former sergeant once called me into his office to order me to write more traffic tickets.  While he was telling me about my numeric deficiencies, he made this statement:

“I need you to write more tickets.  It will make both of us look better.  Besides that, it gives you the chance to fuck with people.  All cops like to fuck with people.”

The sergeant certainly liked to fuck with people, but I don’t.  I have better things to do.  Thinking back on that moment caused me to realize that I might have found the ultimate litmus test between “peace officer” and “law enforcement officer.”

Is the majority of your day spent fucking with people and generating inconsequential “stats?”  If so, you aren’t a peace officer.  You are a revenue generating cog in a political machine.  Your conduct will further undermine the public trust in our profession.  Stop it.



Part of the problem in trying to argue with gun bigots and hoplophobes

and general control freaks is that so many are so horrendously ignorant of what they're screaming about.  We have McCarthy wanting to ban barrel shrouds


We have DeGette, who doesn't even know that magazines can be reloaded...

(you can skip ahead to 2:55 to get to that one)
and other such stupidities.  They don't know squat, and I'm convinced that most of them do not WANT to know;  all they care about is "These things are icky and dangerous, and I don't want them around!"

Yeah, that's gonna happen.

Connected to the 'magazines go away when they're empty' idea is "They'll all wear out soon, so if there aren't any new ones, they'll all be gone!"

Ok, let's play:
On the actual number of firearms in the US, the number that gets thrown around a lot is somewhere between 250-350,000,000, some go to 400m.  And that's probably way low; borrowing from Chris,
It is completely impossible to ban firearms in the United States

There are reportedly 350 million firearms in the U.S. according to FBI estimates. Actually the number is likely far higher... I'd guess it may be double that. Guns are durable. I personally own and shoot guns that are over 100 years old, and which are just as good today as they were when they were first manufactured. If they're properly stored, or properly maintained, guns don't "go bad", or even wear out.

...And we make and sell somewhere between 10 and 20 million guns a year, EVERY YEAR, in the U.S. (the number varies significantly year to year).

You could not possibly seize and destroy them all, or even a significant percentage of them. And if you tried, you'd end up with a lot of dead cops, and possibly a populace, and a military, in revolt against the government.

... and even if "successful" you wouldn't get most of the guns, because people would just hide them.

... and it wouldn't be allowed anyway, because it's against the constitution; and the supreme court has recently reaffirmed this several times.

They can't even effectively ban guns in the UK or Japan which have had strict gun control for many years, AND ARE ISLANDS.


Thank you, Chris.

That 1917 I fired the other day?  It's 99 years old, and shoots well enough to put some new stuff to shame.  I've fired a Trapdoor Springfield that was made in 1884-1885; all original, and it still works flawlessly.  Friend collects antique firearms; he's got stuff from the last 1800's that still work quite well*.  I've had, or tried out, firearms near or well over a century old that still had all their original parts, and still worked.  To get rid of all guns by seizure(which ain't gonna happen) and attrition, well, you're looking at a loooong time.  And that would be IF you could prevent people from making them(or just replacement parts) and smuggling them.  Which won't work(see Britain and Japan, among others).  To even attempt to make such work would destroy any vestige of the US as a free country.  For a bunch of the Democrats and progressive Republicans(damn both of them) who like the idea of "We just need to control the common people a bit more" it might seem worth it; the full-out socialists and communists would love it.  Until they start being the targets of that 4th Generation Warfare that the Dutchman kept warning people about.  And if it hits that point, I don't know how well the US could come back from that.

Throw in the flat-out haters: the people who insist "We need to have a conversation about guns in America!" but all they actually want to do is demand, and insult, and threaten.  And then accuse the people they attack of 'being angry' and such.  They either don't realize that that crap is NOT going to get the result they want, or they don't care; after all, if you don't agree with them you're a accessory to the murder of kids/uncaring bastard/racist/etc., so your opinion- and in the end, your life- doesn't matter.

So we've got a real fight on our hands to hold off the cake thieves,  which isn't easy when so much of the(I started to write 'our media', but it definitely isn't) media is in their pocket.**  But I think we can do it.  Sooner or later, things like the abuse of traumatized teenagers for political purposes does tend to backfire, for one; for another having a bunch of 'progressives' abusing and threatening tends to blow up in their faces also.  We'll see how it goes.


*only reason he doesn't shoot some of them is oddball ammunition.  And if you really wanted to shoot them, that problem can be dealt with.
** see, for instance, places like HuffPo insisting 'Fewer people own guns!', despite the fastest growing groups of first-time gun owners being minorities and women.



Friday, March 02, 2018

One last thing before i collapse for the night:

data is in






























Short range report,

because I feel fairly awful.

Shot two groups using the Lee 405-grain hollowbase bullet over 26.0 grains of A5744 powder.  No wad between powder and bullet, two five-shot groups.  Target one,




Target two
Let's say I'm very happy with these.  Recoil is mild, and this kind of accuracy is great.  I'm going to make up some more of these.

Second, here's the 1917 I was able to fire
I suspect the owner did a bit of polishing on the trigger, as the second stage was light and clean.  Between the sights, trigger, and it being so comfortable to fire with M2 ball, it was a real pleasure to shoot.


And now, if you'll excuse me, I have to do some dishes while I can still move.

More easy stuff

Because so many journalists are Democrat operatives with bylines.


On the mess in South Africa from someone who lived there.


Damn right the videos should be released.


In EffingBI/Do'J' speak, 'misled investigators' means "lied his ass off".

Thursday, March 01, 2018

Couple of notes on the range

pictures later, because I'm beat.

How beat?

If a mostly-naked Sandra Bullock walked in the door and whispered "Make me a women", I'd have trouble getting up much enthusiasm.  Or anything else.  I hate being sick.

Anyway, I had a chance to shoot something interesting today: a Eddystone 1917.  If you're not familiar, short history:
The Brits didn't have enough rifles at the start of WWI, and had a couple of companies in the US making P14s for them: five-shot, aperture rear sight, ear-protected front, in .303.  Then they got production up on #1Mk3 Enfields.  About that time, the US got into the war, and it was discovered that Springfield Armory didn't have enough tooling and gauges to make enough 1903 Springfields for US troops.  Someone had a bright idea, checked, and found that if you modified the bolt face to handle the rimless .30-06 cartridge, and bored & rifled the barrel for it, it worked quite well, and had better sights than the 1903.  It became the 1917.

Anyway, besides being an interesting piece of history, this thing- firing standard 150-grain ball, yet- is downright pleasant to shoot.  Much more so than I remember the 1903 bring.

Assuming I can, tomorrow I'll try to set up the pictures I took before the fever started and post them.

Tab clearing, because it requires little thought

Brought to you by the only people who should be allowed to have guns.


After ten minutes of CNN’s town hall “debate” I had already searched for gun safes, the closest firearms dealer near me, classes on gun safety, and an NRA membership. Whether that’s a sign the event was a rousing success or terrible failure depends on who you ask. But whenever the left talks about gun control, significant numbers of people who see value in the Second Amendment run out and purchase a gun. 

Normally, that wouldn’t include me. But this time was different. Here’s why.


Lots of sheriff's are saying "Screw you, I'm not enforcing this anti-gun-ownership law."


Looks like Palmetto State deserves our business.


That would be my response to Mexico bitching about a wall: "Why don't you try making your country less of a shithole, so people don't think walking across a desert or putting their kids on a train to get to the US is better than staying home?"


No shit.


No, those teenagers didn't put all that together by themselves.  Yes, they're being used.


They Don’t Hate The NRA. They Hate You.


And that's all I'm good for tonight.

I went to the range today

and it may have been a mistake; what I thought was allergies the last day or two may be some form of plague.

I may post more later.  If I'm coherent and/or alive.

Wednesday, February 28, 2018

I'm sure someone will bitch that she didn't give away

the right kind of books.
Parton is the founder of Imagination Library, a nonprofit that started out donating books in Sevier County, Tenn., and grew into a million-book-a-month operation. Families who sign up receive a book per month from birth to kindergarten. The singer donated her organization’s 100 millionth book to the nation’s library on Tuesday.

He's back

Might be a different mockingbird, but I think the same one from the last few years.





So, Dick's Sporting Goods doesn't just stop selling 'assault-style rifles',

they won't sell standard magazines.  And those evil bump-stocks they never carried anyway.

But that's not enough, oh no:
Screw this place.  I'd bought a few things there in the past, but never again; they don't want to sell something, that's their choice; they decide to make themselves part of the enemy, then they should expect to be treated as such.




I'll take "Bureaucrats who need clubbing" for $1000, Alex.

A London woman who survived breast cancer isn’t faring so well against city bylaw officers who fined her $2,260 for providing a service to patients that medical staff say is invaluable.
Had cancer.  Found that a lot of people had trouble getting rides for tests or treatment.  Started driving people, charging ten bucks to cover costs.  But "You do not have permission from the State to do this, peasant."

Asshats.  Every bastard involved.


A note on why so many students are such idiots
I started giving quizzes to my juniors and seniors before I even passed out the attendance sheet the first day or the syllabus. I gave them a 10-question American history quiz and we started - even though I'm an English professor not an American historian - just to see where they are. And this has been true for seven consecutive years - the vast majority of my students, I'm talking like nine out of ten in every single class, 28, 29 out of 30 kids - they have no idea that slavery existed anywhere in the world before the United States. And I've got Christian kids, I've got Jewish kids. Moses, Pharoh, none of that. They have none of it. They are a hundred percent convinced that slavery is a uniquely American  invention and that with the Emancipation Proclamation slavery ended worldwide. They're convinced of this. How do you give an adequate view of history and culture to kids when that's what they think of their own country? That America invented slavery and and the whole Black Lives Matter movement, which is taught as absolute history in English classes and philosophy classes, in sociology classes and biology classes and race identity classes, that's the new narrative, right?  That even though slavery ended in America it's still with us in the way we oppressed minorities and so that's all they know. They know nothing else.


The Gun Control Debate Isn’t Really About Guns. It’s About Human Rights

Exactly.
Liberals seem to think we care because “it’s our right” or merely “because of the Second Amendment,” but this isn't the primary driver behind our thinking. If it were, liberals might reasonably conclude that we don’t care, and rightly feel they hold the moral high ground. Their position is that safe schools should be valued over my gun. But this isn’t just about my right to "keep and bear arms," whatever you may think that phrase written into the Constitution in 1791 means in 2018.

Fundamentally, this is about the government's responsibility to prove I have committed a crime before taking away my rights. Let me explain.

Tuesday, February 27, 2018

tab clearing

No, schools are not more dangerous and mass-shootings more common.


Another type 80% receiver kit.


If this stuff is correct... hangings are in order.


"The school board refused comment because they're to chickenshit to defend this."


For some reason Obama wanted no public reporting on this talk.  Which included this horseshit:
"We didn't have a scandal that embarrassed us," he said. The former president admitted that his team made mistakes, but no massive screw-ups.
So, that comfortable lying, or deluded?


Probably because they can whore out teenagers better than adults who can't be counted on to speak the Approved Narrative.


Speaking of whoring out teenagers,
Policy proposals aren’t the real aim of the anti-gun crowd. What they’re thinking is: We must strike a blow against gun culture. We must punish gun owners in general by doing something that annoys them. This is the Democratic obverse of Trumpian bully culture: It’s public policy reduced to public shaming. It’s insult theater. The politics of id. Is America really going to be made safer by shaming the First National Bank of Omaha into no longer issuing an NRA-branded Visa card? How is forcing through an increase of from 2 to 10 percent on the price NRA members pay for a United or Delta flight to the group’s annual convention supposed to decrease gun deaths?

These petty slights are all meant to redefine the NRA as outside the mainstream, activists say on Twitter. It seems more likely that NRA members, and gun owners in general, are going to perceive a concerted attack on gun culture and vote accordingly. Progressives don’t have a plan for stopping mass shootings. So they’re falling back on venting at gun owners, and they’re using the children of Parkland to do it.


"Bake my NRA cake, or I'll sue your ass off."


Leftists vs. the People

The more that comes out, the worse this agency looks

On Monday, Fox News host Laura Ingraham revealed in an exclusive that Broward County Sheriff's Deputies were supposedly told not to enter Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School unless they had body cameras on, which they did not have.
Have you ever read such bullshit? 

Let's say they didn't have cameras: they all decided "Screw kids dying, we can't go in with no cameras" and sat out there 'holding a perimeter'?  We're supposed to believe all this crap?

And this...
Ingraham also revealed that police "lost radio transmissions" during the shooting, which also happened at the mass shooting at Fort Lauderdale airport shooting last year, which is also in Broward County.
They really need to start putting people under oath and seizing evidence.  Before this 'sheriff' makes more disappear than he already has.

As the protesters neared the exit,

a woman suddenly lunged for the audio equipment, pulled leads out indiscriminately, and knocked some of the equipment to the floor. The microphones stopped working. Another protester shoved a student volunteer into the door.

What caused this extreme reaction?
A bunch of farging idiots who think disagreeing with them is violence and shouldn't be allowed.  Aided and abetted by idiot journalists
...After the incident, however, the disruption and violent misconduct were downplayed. Willamette Week, a left-wing alternative newspaper, was dismissive: “[The Freethinkers] expected controversy. They warned of violence. None arrived.” Perhaps not the kind of violence that had been threatened, but there was intentional “criminal mischief,” hundreds of dollars in property damage, and unnecessary disruption lasting just over four minutes (not the 30 seconds the Willamette Week incorrectly reported).
who are sorry excuses for reporters.  As Insty has noted, 'Consider them Democrat operatives with bylines'.



"How would you like to be

…a black teacher with a CCW after a school shooting.”
Yes, someone actually made that argument as a reason for not allowing teachers who are licensed to carry to do so at schools.

So, let me get this straight.  Since the police are late (requiring the armed teacher to intervene in the first place), incompetent (incapable of doing threat assessment and differentiating between an armed intruder attacking students and an armed teacher defending them–hint:  as a starter, look which way the gun is pointed) and racist (else why mention “black”?) then the teachers should not be armed.

Well, they might have a point with those arguments but far from being an argument for keeping the teachers disarmed, it’s more one for disarming the late, incompetent, racists.
There's more.  Lots more.

I approve this message

“I’d bite off the Beatles, or anybody else. It’s all one world, one planet and one groove. You’re supposed to learn from each other, blend from each other, and it moves around like that,” the Grammy-winner said.
...
“You see that rocket ship leave yesterday? We can maybe leave this planet. We gonna be dealing with aliens. You think black and white gonna be a problem? Wait till you start running into motherfuckers with three or four dicks! Bug-eyed motherfuckers!” the 1997 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee said. “They could be ready to party, or they could be ready to eat us. We don’t know, but we’ve got to get over this shit of not getting along with each other.”
THAT attitude needs to get around more.




Oil test, followup

Back in December I tried using a new cleaner, Metcor 57 Bore Cleaner, and followed that up with Bore Shield, which is supposed to protect rust.  To try that out I took an old knife blade, sanded it a bit to brighten it up, gave it a light coat of the Shield and left it out under the carport.

Brought it in this morning after more than two months outside.
There's not a speck of rust on the treated surfaces.  So I'd have to say this actually works for the purpose.

Monday, February 26, 2018

The hell 'nobody wants to take your guns'

House Democrats have introduced a bill banning semi-automatic firearms in the wake of the Feb. 14 shooting at a high school in Parkland, Fla.
Note that this is virtually ALL semi-auto firearms.

Attention Cicilline: Fuck you.  No.


A bit of artillery history

Rodman's Great Guns
Including some innovation on gunpowder:
Perhaps even more important than his casting procedure was Rodman's development of progressive-burning powder. When any gun fires, of course, the volume of the bore behind the projectile increases as the projectile travels toward the muzzle. The normal black powder grain, however, irregular in shape, burns from the outside, so that its burning surface area continually decreases. Thus, in a normal black-powder piece, initial breech pressure is the highest obtained; the forward traveling projectile increases bore volume as the powder burns at a decreasing rate. Both occurrences reduce interior bore pressure.

Rodman proposed powder pressed into hexagonal grains perforated with several longitudinal holes so that as individual grains burned both inside and out, albeit almost instantaneously, the burning surface of each grain actually would increase. Rodman's powder didn't increase pressures--it simply maintained a higher bore pressure than normal powder could, as the projectile traveled forward. The result, logically, was an increased muzzle velocity of the projectile.


From Lawdog

Do read the whole thing, here's the heart:
If you come to me -- or your boss -- on a quiet afternoon and say, "I've thought about it, and I don't think I can do the needful to save kids" then all honour to you, and I wish you peace and happiness in another profession.
But if you wait until the bangs and the stinks and the screams are in progress to decide that you just can't do it ... you, sir, are a useless oath-breaking bucket of squid chum, who is parasitising a position, a uniform, and a salary that could be held by someone who can do the needful.

And -- quite frankly -- if you wear a badge, and you hide behind a car while children under your protection are getting killed, you should have the common [deleted] decency to take your sidearm, find a quiet country road somewhere, and Do The Proper Thing.

Nothing but the back of my hand to you -- all of you.

Under the heading of "Can't stop the signal, Mal",

screw-together AR lower plans.

Sunday, February 25, 2018

Can you say 'Chickenshit excuse for a peace officer'?

I knew you could.
Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel just admitted on Jake Tapper State of the Union that he knew of reports Deputy didn’t enter school at time of CNN town hall forum in which he mocked and berated the NRA and Dana Loesch.

Israel said he didn’t mention it during the forum because he was waiting for investigators to confirm the reports.
Translation: "I wanted to keep this covered up as long as possible."

Also,

That twit wanting executions in the streets for owning guns?

This guy saved it, if you're on Fecesbook you can read it there.

This mess in Florida is even more dirty than thought

There were FOUR RSOs at the school, none of whom did anything except hide, 'set up a perimeter' and wait.

The failure by the school and RSOs to actually do anything about this little bastard- and others- was planned and intentional.
That 30-minute delay in the surveillance video?
♦ Secondly, the 27-minute tape-delay in the CCTV system is not an "accident", "flaw" or "mistake". It is entirely by design.

As a standard Broward and Miami-Dade practice, when school law enforcement need to cover-up or hide behavior, they need time (when that behavior happens) to delete the evidence trail. As such, the school policy – as carried out in practice – is more efficient with a 30-minute tape delay affording the school officer enough time to deal with the situation, then erase the possibility of a recording of the unlawful activity surfacing.

Building in a 30-minute delay on the CCTV system was one of those pesky add-on items that happened a few years ago when the School and Law Enforcement officials established the policy of intentionally not arresting students.

With modern technology it's tough to hide criminal behavior, especially the violent stuff, when it is being recorded. Duh. Ergo the tape-delay was the best-practice workaround.
Throw in the EffingBI being too busy with important matters like chasing problems in college sports, and we get a bunch of dead kids.

'Missed warning signs' my ass, they were deliberately ignored.  Including by that chickenshit sheriff who knew about all this, and then went posturing on 'the NRA
's fault!' on tv.  Bastards.  Disgusting bastards, all of them.