Snowflakes in Hell

Ahab has a good post pointing out the very close resemblance to H&K’s 4.6×30mm round to the .17HMR in terms of ballistics.  Since H&K has decided to disrespect the shooting community in the US by refusing to offer civilians versions of most of its product line, it’s hard for me to get excited about the MP7.  Actually, I’m very skeptical of most of the PDW concepts I’ve seen out there today.  I don’t quite see the point in a round that will penetrate soft body armor, but will likely not stop the attacker beyond that.

The only PDW I could see myself getting is this one.  To me, if you want better than a submachine gun penetrating power in a lightweight package, the existing 5.56×45 NATO round is just fine.

Australia’s National Coalition for Gun Control wants to put a 10 year ban if a licensee “attempts self harm”:

The National Coalition for Gun Control has called for a mandatory 10 year cancellation of a firearm licence if a licensee attempts self-harm.

The call comes after a coroner’s inquest into the murder-suicide of a family at East Gresford, in the New South Wales Hunter Valley, three years ago.

Michael Richardson, 32, killed his wife and children before shooting himself - he had previously attempted suicide, but had been reissued with a gun licence.

I guess the whole licensing scheme was insufficient to stop someone from going nuts.   So a 10 year ban should do just fine?  I’ve never bought the suicide risk argument for applying a disability.  If someone wants to off themselves, that’s their own business.  The fact that sometimes they decide to take others with them is also not compelling.  Would the National Coalition for Gun Control feel better if the suicidal pop drove the wife and kids off a bridge or into a lake?

… make me proud to be an American.  That looks like a lot of fun.

Via Conservative Scalawag

Kim and Tam are amused by the Cult of Apple. It’s all rather amusing to me since I was a part of the cult before it was cool. Started in 1992 with a Mac IIsi and System 7. I had used the Classic Mac with System 5 and System 6, but never owned one. System 7 was considerably better than Windows 3.1. I was more functional and sure crashed a lot less. Windows 95 wouldn’t come out for another few years, and even when it did, it sucked too.

Apple lagged behind for a while with System 8 and 9, at least in terms of essential features like protected memory and preemptive multi-tasking. Apple caught up when it bought NeXT and reengineered NeXTStep to be MacOS X, which is a truly wonderfully engineered operating system.

I was a Linux user from the dark days of System 8 and 9 up until recently, when I purchased the MacBook Pro. Trendy or not, they are still putting out the best desktop operating system on the market today. It’s really just NeXTStep with better eye candy and a more Macintosh-like look and feel, but NeXTStep was way ahead of it’s time years ago, and I think has come of age rather nicely as MacOS X.

So don’t buy a Mac because it’s trendy. Buy it because it’s a legitimately excellent product. I spent 10 minutes using a laptop with Vista on it before I wanted to throw it out a window. Even Linux is less obnoxious as a desktop operating system than Windows is becoming.

Maybe this is a response to the letter I sent!  But maybe they are getting a lot of them.   The Pennsylvania AG has clarified the residency requirements:

It has come to the attention of the Office of Attorney General that there has been confusion over the applicability of Pennsylvania’s reciprocal privileges with regard to the residency status of an individual who has been issued a valid license/permit.  It is the position of the Office of Attorney General that recognition within Pennsylvania is based on the issuance to an individual of a valid license/permit by the reciprocal contracting state, and not on the license/permit holder’s place of residence.

So there you have it folks.  If you’re a carrying on a non-resident, reciprocal permit, you’re legal.