Snowflakes in Hell

Bryan Miller is still pushing the notion that the 50 BMG and the rifles that fire it are menacing weapons of mass destruction in the bit I quoted the other day.  Let me quote for you a section, but please, go see for yourself, and comment:

Finally, I know you guys will never get it…that society has a duty and responsibility to mediate between individual privilege (in this case, the fun of firing a big gun) and public safety (the chance that hundreds or thousands could be injured or killed by one man with one of these massively destructive guns). In this state, you’re a tiny minority. Thank God. The vast majority of New Jerseyans value public safety over your fun. Get used to it.

Privilege?   Wait a minute, let me check my copy of the constitution again.

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed

Yeah, I was pretty sure it didn’t say privilege.  This is pure pants shitting hysterics folks.  I’m quite happy to live on this side of the river, where fewer people are buying this crap, and we’re not looking for ways to outlaw fun.

Go comment folks, if you can.  We can’t let their ignorance peddling, deceptions, and untruths go unanswered.   New Jersey may be a lost cause for shooters, but Pennsylvania is not, and Bryan is bringing that crap over here too.

Been shopping around for some more .22LR, as I’ve been going through it like gangbusters lately.  Normally I shoot high velocity out of the 10/22, but I want to switch to standard velocity.  Main reason is accuracy.  With high velocity, shooting at 100 yards, you can get some buffeting on the bullet as it crosses the sound barrier on its way to sub-sonic velocities.  I don’t want to shoot match ammo, because it’s more expensive, and my shooting skills aren’t really worth match ammo.

But here’s a question.  Why, almost universally, is high velocity ammo copper plated, but standard velocity is just lead round nose.  Even the match ammo is just lead round nose.   I have no idea why this is.  Do any of you?

I think it’s time to add a police blog category. Going in that are:

Support Your Local Gunfighter
Second City Cop
The Policeman’s Blog

Also adding to the gun blogger category:

The Conservative UAW Guy
The Madman Raves

If you’re on the roll, that does mean I read you regularly. The list of blogs is getting kind of long. And there’s more on the RSS feed that I don’t have linked. No worries though. I’m getting the whole blog reading thing into a routine. It’s a routine called skimming :)

Conservative UAW Guy has the results. Came in third out of eight in class. Ahab beat my ass with his EAA Bounty Hunter by being a much better single handed shooter than I am. Billl only notched him by two. Denise shows that she’s quite the bullseye shooter, beating everyone by a hefty margin one handed shooting in the rimfire optics class. But it wasn’t enough to overcome Mr. Completely and his High Standard, who took the class overall.

Good shooting everyone! I anxiously await the next e-postal match. Remember, anyone can participate, and everyone should (even Macca).

… that eventually, they are going to run out of people in Philadelphia who are worth shooting. 251 and counting.   Meanwhile city council members have the energy to worry about what SEPTA is painting on their buses, and the time to stop off and hurl profanities in my general direction.

I just signed up for trade discounts from MidwayUSA and Brownells, which should more than pay for the 30 dollar cost of the C&R FFL. Even though having a type 3 FFL increases your risk of a government anal probing, I think it’s well worth it for the discount, and being able to order C&R eligible firearms direct, at lower prices than you’d get from your corner gun store.

It’s one of the few beneficial upsides to these crappy laws: the C&R is a useful signaling mechanism to retailers that you take your hobby and sport seriously, and are likely to be a frequent customer. I certainly will start patronizing Midway and Brownells more than I have in the past, so it’s a good deal for all parties, I think.

… that we have the gun control movement in full retreat.  This is the time to be most vigilant, and stay in the fight politically.  Keep the NRA, and other gun rights organizations powerful, and well financed.  To use an analogy: the Civil War dragged on for years, largely because Union generals, even when they could beat Lee, never pursued his army and destroyed it, but allowed him to safely retreat.

With a number of gun control organizations currently on the ropes, and with a possible Supreme Court victory for the right to bear arms in sight, we are presented with an opportunity to pursue and defeat the gun control movement as we currently know it, but we can only do it if we stay strong, and united.

Via Michael Bane

… that E-bay is evil. I am probably the only person my age, who is otherwise internet savvy, that’s never bought or sold anything off of E-bay.

Via The Madman Raves: Interview with Bob Levy on the Parker Case.

This is really one of the best tales of the gun buy back that I’ve seen.  Great job!  Philly, unfortunately, has wised up and stopped handing out cash.  They only hand out gift certificates to places I wouldn’t want to shop.  But in the hey day, they were offering up to 250 dollars for anything they considered to be an “assault” weapon, and I think 100 for a pistol, and 50 for a long gun that didn’t look scary.

Ahab links to paintball guns that look like Kalashnikovs.  Oddly enough, they are variants on the same type of paintball gun I have.  I do occasionally play, but I have to admit this is kind of silly.  Painball has absolutely nothing to do with marksmanship or equipment.  It’s all tactics.

I’ve shot expensive paintball guns and cheap ones, and it all comes down to the fact that you can’t get a liquid filled gelatin ball to go in a consistent direction no matter what fancy things you imagine your gun does to it.  Paintball guns that look like real ones tend to be impractical, because the mask you need to wear when playing prevents a reasonable cheek weld, and aiming doesn’t really do you any good anyway.

Sqeaky Wheel is looking for first time gun buying advice. I’m going to assume she’s not completely novice shooting, because I advise novices to start with an inexpensive .22LR semi-auto, work out the basics, and then move up to a pistol with actual recoil.

For concealed carry, I’m a fan of semi-autos. They are easier to shoot accurately, carry more cartridges, and are easy to reload. Of the pistols she lists, I would go with either the Glock 19 (which is what I carry) or the Springfield XD.

However, I am a 6′3″, 230lb male. I can conceal a compact frame pistol without too much difficulty. Carry for women is a more difficult proposition, because there’s no really good way to conceal. Women have curves in the wrong places for concealing a gun, and unless you’re ok with wearing baggy clothes all the time, it can be a real problem.

The best method for women is probably purse carry, but to do that you need to invest in a quality carry purse that allows quick and easy access. If you can’t draw and present the gun for firing in a few seconds, you need to rethink your method. Especially if you plan to carry a semi-auto, it’s vitally important that the firearm be contained in a proper holster within the purse. Some purse holsters come with fabric holsters that I think are entirely inadequate, because they don’t allow for easy re-holstering. If you see one with retention straps on it, ditch them. If the firearm is secure in the gun compartment of the purse, they are superfluous, and will complicate your draw. You will also need to be very careful about placing down the purse. If you’re the kind of person that misplaces it, purse carry is not for you. This is one area there’s no room for error. You also have to be prepared to thwart purse snatchers, and be prepared for them; if they get your purse, they get your gun too.

There are other deep concealment methods that can work if you practice them enough, but I’ve always been skeptical of their utility in a stress situation.

Lessons from Macca has brought up a big question, as to whether that type of commenting is just using an alias, or engaging in sock puppetry. Sock puppetry is a distinct act, and we should be careful not to accuse it when what we’re really seeing is use of an alias. Sock puppetry requires misrepresenting yourself as another distinct person. Was the poster misrepresenting themselves as another person? Or merely trying to hide identity? To me that’s the key distinction. Sebastian, for instance, is an alias. I use it to hide my true identity, but anything I tell you about myself, or any of my opinions, are the real deal. I’m not trying to represent myself as a different person than I am.

Is Macca and alias, or a sock puppet? Discuss in the comments.

This CentreDaily editorial is pretty spot on:

Making I-80 a toll road is, at best, a quick fix and would disproportionately affect those living near the swath the highway cuts through the Keystone State countryside from New Jersey to Ohio. Worse, it would greatly expand the authority of the highly inefficient, patronage-laden Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission.

Toll booths at the borders — incoming and outgoing — would be less objectionable.

Leasing the turnpike — turning over a valuable asset to a for-profit corporation with less, if any, accountability to the public — is an even worse idea.

Read the whole thing.

Good article about the divide appearing on the global warming issue among sportsmen here in the Keystone State:

An intense debate about whether global warming exists — and what should be done about it — has created a sharp division within Pennsylvania’s largest sportsmen’s organization and threatens its 71-year conservation alliance with the National Wildlife Federation.

The 100,000-member Pennsylvania Federation of Sportsmen’s Clubs has wrestled with global warming for years. But the issue came to a head in March during the group’s spring convention in Williamsport, where several delegates threatened to quit if an NWF-sponsored resolution recognizing global warming as a serious environmental problem was adopted.

I think there’s a real risk in bringing other parts of the conservative agenda into situations like this.  While I would agree sportsmen should reject anything seriously radical, it seems to me recognizing global warming as a serious environmental problem ought not ruffle enough feathers to risk fracturing the coalition.

So we know that SayUncle posted here his theory for what happened with the Brady Blog.  I suspected that Macca was a young staffer, but I would appear to have been incorrect, after comments on my post here.  I am fairly certain that I know Macca’s true identity at this point.

In the interest of decency, I’m not going to out who she/he is.  My personal curiosity was merely to find out whether we had some real grass roots showing up on Brady’s Blog or whether we had people closely associated with the organization showing up to make it appear that way.

Macca would appear to be a board member for the Brady Campaign, and an activist with the organization in Texas.  It would appear Macca is not full time paid staff, but nonetheless is closely associated with the organization.  Just for contrast, SayUncle isn’t even a member of the NRA.  I am a member, but I doubt there are any NRA board members out there who would know me if they saw me.   I have met some prominent people in the gun rights community, but all those contacts I developed through blogging.   Before I started blogging, I was just a number in the member database.  I started this blog, because I cared about the issue, and I wanted to impress a chick.  All of us have similar stories.

I have no doubt that Macca is as passionate about gun control as I am about stopping it, but if one of the few proponents of gun control that’s showing up to argue against us, on their own blog, is a Brady Board member, they have a lot of work to do getting people energized about their issue, and getting them informed.

The gun control movement has had three decades of a fawning media who were willing to eat up everything they said without question, and regurgitate it for public consumption.   The new media isn’t going to work that way.  We’re out here and prepared to challenge them, and their new media efforts to date stand as a shining example of how unprepared I think they are.   They had better come up with new arguments, and get used to dealing with tough criticism and questions, because it’s not going to get any easier from here.   We’re all going to make sure of that!

So, is it good luck that both times you’ve been struck by lightning, you survived?  Or is it bad luck that you’ve been struck by lightning two times?  Maybe this guy’s diet is a bit too high in iron or something.

Looks like Joe Biden will be doing a book signing event in Dickson City (near Scranton), PA.  You could personally ask him why he thinks you’re a lunatic, if you like.  Except that you’d actually have to buy his book.

This is interesting:

The National Rifle Association has created a wine club, and a donation of its proceeds go to the NRA in its battle to preserve the Second Amendment.

According to winespectator.com, NRA members can go to the organization’s Web site and shop for a variety of “vintage boutique wines handpicked for club members.” Buy $500 worth of wine, and you’ll get a rebate that pays for your NRA membership, the Web site said.

According to many, the NRA are nothing but a bunch of trailer park bubbas. What’s with the hoity toity wine club? I’m not much of a wine drinker. I pretty much do the two B’s: beer and bourbon. I feel left out.

The regulations on armor piercing ammo are among the strangest of the federal firearms regulations. The first is that AP ammo is rather odd in its definition. The ATF defines it as handgun ammunition, but there’s a catch. If any handgun has ever been made in a specific caliber, then ATF considers that the AP ammo regulations then apply to that caliber. That’s why you can’t buy AP ammo for cartridges like 7.62×39 and several others. The 5.56×45NATO is specifically exempted from this, even though there are pistols made for it.

It’s perfectly legal to possess, purchase, sell or shoot armor piercing ammunition. It’s not legal to manufacture or import armor piercing ammunition.

In order to manufacture AP rounds, you have to hold a type 10 FFL (18 USC sec. 922(a)(7)). In order to import AP rounds, you have to hold a type 11 FFL (18 USC sec. 922(a)(7)). If you hold either one of these FFLs, it’s not legal to sell or export AP rounds, except to military, law enforcement (18 USC sec. 922(a)(8)). In addition, if you hold a type 06-08 FFL (manufactures of firearms, importers of firearms, manufactures of ammunition), then you also my not sell AP rounds to the general public.

For regular type 01-03 FFL holders, you may sell or deliver AP ammunition, but it must be entered into the Acquisition and Disposition Record (bound book). So if you have any AP rounds in your possession, that’s ok. But it’s been illegal to manufacture or import new ammunition that’s transferable to ordinary citizens for quite some time, and for the most part, it’s generally unavailable, and certainly not in any significant quantity for most calibers.

Of course, there are also various state restrictions. Pennsylvania prohibits KTW ammunition. NJ and NY have additional restrictions on AP ammo.

Joseph has links to some pictures of the Knights Armament PDW.   Looks like Knights went with a more traditional approach, and basically has produced a variant of the standard assault rifle, only with a shorter barrel and firing an intermediate cartridge.  One advantage to going this way is that the rifle can have iron sights.

I’m more of a fan of the compact PDW platform.  I’d rather see a bullpup style config, with the trigger forward.  I think a certain compactness should be key to the PDW concept.

Via Of Arms And the Law, apparently Carolyn McCarthy has responded to Josh Sugarmann’s objections to HR2640 over at HuffPo. I wonder how many coctails the Congresswoman from New York needed to imbibe in order to dull the pain of writing these words:

The author must also consider the political realities of Washington. Despite the efforts of Mr. Sugarmann and many others, the National Rifle Association still wields tremendous influence in the halls of Congress and their blessing is required for any bill that enforces or creates gun laws.

Ouch! That had to hurt. The pain doesn’t end there, however:

In listing the three anti-gun violence organizations that have reservations about my bill, Mr. Sugarmann inadvertently addresses why the NRA has such power while the efforts of organizations working to prevent gun violence have been futile for close to a decade. The NRA is consolidated into a single cohesive unit, but the groups working for common sense gun laws are many and each possess their own agenda and points of view. Only when these groups join forces for common legislative goals will we be able to prevail not only in the halls of Congress, but in state legislatures and city halls across the country as well.

I guess she doesn’t know all the bickering that often goes on between GOA, JPFO, NRA and SAF. We are pretty united though otherwise, I’ll give her that. But we need to stay that way, which is why I get pissy when one group attacks the other to get advantage for their own group. It’s one thing to criticize, that’s fine, but I still think GOA became unhinged over HR2640. Carolyn McCarthy might get her wish though, given that the VPC is hemmoraging money at an astounding rate, it might not be too long before the gun control movement only has one group left standing.

She shouldn’t count on that translating to victory, however. The root reason we’re achieving victories over them politically isn’t that we’re united, it’s that there are a lot more of us than there are of them. If there’s a serious political movement to pass gun control, it’s completely unapparent to me here on the Internet.

Bryan Miller has an editorial going on NJ voices. I’d pick out a quote, but the whole thing really must be read, because it’s a continuous several pages of pants shitting hysterics. I decided to put int he comments:

Wow Bryan. That was the longest hysterical rant I’ve read in a while. I normally won’t touch Anheiser-Busch’s products, because, let’s face it: it’s not good beer. But your post has made me decide maybe I should get a six pack of Bud, if Anheiser-Busch they are so dedicated about protecting my constitutional rights from people like you.

You guys really need to come up with some original arguments. You’re still pushing crap about the 50 caliber rifle being able to destroy things like rail cars, when Sr Vice President of Trinity Trail Group said:

“The assertions put forth about the threat to rail from fifty caliber rifles have no basis in reality. We exhaustively test our chemical rail car designs against all types of firearms, including fifty caliber. In almost all tests the bullet simply bounced off. The worst-case scenario we could demonstrate was a tiny leak equivalent to a hand-valve that wasn’t completely closed. Leaks of that scale happen every day all across America.”

The type of armor piercing incendiary ammunition that would light anything on fire is not available to the civilian market. Regular ammunition is not generally capable of lighting fires. The 50 BMG is not an explosive round. It’s not much different, ballistically, from other big game hunting rounds of similar caliber.

But the rifles that fire the BMG look scary, don’t they. And with many people in New Jersey having absolutely no familiarity with firearms, it sure does make them easy targets for the kind of disinformation your organization likes to push, doesn’t it?

Bryan Miller is also executive director of CeaseFire PA, because it wasn’t enough to destroy everyone’s second amendment rights in New Jersey. Now he has to do it in my state too. Fortunately, unlike New Jersey, we have a very clearly worded right to bear arms provision in our state constitution, and an active shooter community. He will not find his ideas so receptive on this side of the Delaware.

Go register and leave a comment.  Be polite, and factual.  We can’t let these folks misleading of the public go unanswered.

A lot of other people have linked Rob’s great suggestions for Paul.  I will too.   It’s deserving of a high google rank.

I’ve arrived in Northern Virginia.  Spent the better part of the day getting my car fixed.  Had to take a day off work, unfortunately, once I realized it was going to be a while.  Bitter is entertaining some folks from work this weekend, and David Hardy is in town, so we’re going to try to meet up with him.

But you know, I’m here pretty much every other weekend.  Any of you Brady folks visiting today ever want to get together for a drink, since you guys are DC based, and all, just leave a comment.  I’ll even meet you in The District, which is sadly much less safe than Fairfax County, but you don’t have to worry about sitting next to a bunch of strapped gun bloggers :)  We’re the kind of people who obey gun control laws, you know.